jk

A much better ps for finding things to kill.

Fed up with ps showing you 30 copies of "node" with zero context? Want to know what is running and where? jk is a drop-in replacement that shows you what you actually care about.

Why "jk"?

Because when I threatened to call it "reaper" to troll my friend Joey, I was just kidding.

Features

• 🎯 Shows what matters: node:server.ts instead of just "node"
• 📍 Working directory: Know which project each process belongs to
• 🔌 Port detection: See listening ports with -p (node:server.ts:3000)
• ⏱️ Age tracking: See uptime (2m, 3h, 5d) to spot recent vs stale processes
• 🎨 Color coded: Python, Node, Ruby, etc. get different colors
• 🚫 Hides system junk: No more drowning in 500+ macOS daemons
• ⚡ Fast: Uses libproc for instant cwd lookup (not slow lsof)
• 🔍 Filter anything: jk node, jk fractal, jk vscode

Installation

Homebrew (macOS):

brew install redswoop/tap/jk

Linux / other (curl):

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/redswoop/jk/main/install.sh | bash

From source:

git clone https://github.com/redswoop/jk.git
cd jk
make build
sudo mv jk /usr/local/bin/

Usage

# Show all your processes (system junk hidden)
jk

# Filter by name or path
jk node              # All node processes
jk fractal           # Processes in fractal directory
jk python            # All python processes

# Show listening ports (slower, uses lsof)
jk -p node           # node:server.ts:3000
jk -p                # All processes with ports

# Include GUI apps (Terminal, Safari, etc.)
jk -g

# Just PIDs (for piping to kill)
jk node -q
kill $(jk node -q)   # Kill all node processes

# Show everything (including system processes)
jk --all

What You See

Without ports:

PID     AGE     WHAT                      WHERE
9186    42m     node:server.ts            src/fractal
68289   7h45m   vscode:pylance            vsc:pylance
72646   1d15h   BambuStudio               app/BambuStudio/log

With ports (-p):

PID     AGE     WHAT                      WHERE
9186    42m     node:server.ts:3000       src/fractal
5432    2h      python:api.py:8080        src/backend

Colors:

• 🟡 Recent (< 1 min) - bright yellow
• ⚫ Old (> 1 day) - dimmed
• 🟢 Node/npm - green
• 🟡 Python - yellow
• 🟣 Ruby - magenta
• 🔵 VS Code - blue

Customization

Override colors with PS_COLORS:

export PS_COLORS='python=31:node=32:ruby=35'
# 31=red 32=green 33=yellow 34=blue 35=magenta 36=cyan

Path Shortening

Instead of this:

~/Library/CloudStorage/Dropbox/src/fractal

You see:

src/fractal

Common verbose paths are automatically shortened:

• ~/Library/CloudStorage/Dropbox/ → (stripped)
• ~/Library/Application Support/ → app/
• ~/.vscode/extensions/ → vsc:

Aliases

Make it your default ps:

# Add to ~/.zshrc or ~/.bashrc
alias ps='jk'

# Or keep both
alias pps='jk'

Requirements

• macOS or Linux (amd64/arm64)
• macOS uses libproc for fast cwd lookup; Linux reads /proc

Why not just use htop/btop/etc?

Those are great for monitoring. jk is for killing. Different use case.

When you need to kill that rogue node process you just started, you don't want to:

1. Open htop
2. Search through 500 processes
3. Find the one you want
4. Kill it

You want to:

kill $(jk node -q | head -1)

License

MIT

Author

Built because ps is terrible and I was tired of running lsof manually to figure out which node process was which.