Run sudocode-server as a service

[dmophir]

Overview

When installing sudocode, the package can create service files to allow the server to run in the background. I already created such service files for macOS and Linux and they appear to be functional. These services can be launched with user-level permissions, but the install script can also ask the user if these services should be enabled first, or prompt the user with relevant commands printed to the console.

Proposed implementation

npm packages have a postinstall script. This script can detected what OS the user is running, then copy the relevant service file to the appropriate directory. This script can accept a simple [Y/n] to enable the service on install. This service would still allow future development like a dedicated frontend client or IDE extensions, since the server still provides the same APIs.

postinstall skeleton

postinstall.js:

const platform = process.platform;
// ask user if service should be enabled

if (platform === "linux") {
   // set service path to ~/.config/systemd/user/sudocode-server.service
   // load systemd template, replace vars as needed
   // copy systemd service file
   // enable systemd service
} else if (platform === "darwin") {
  // same as above, but for mac/launchagent
} else if (platform === "windows") {
  // same as above, but for windows/ScheduledTask
}

package.json:

{
  "scripts": {
    "postinstall": "node postinstall.js"
  },
  "files": [
    "postinstall.js",
    "systemd/sudocode-server.service",
    "LaunchAgents/com.sudocode.server.plist"
  ]
}

cli updates

• sudocode-server service to manage the service
  • start/stop
  • enable/disable
  • logs
• sudocode import/sync now detects whether the service is running and performs any action as needed

Possible issues

I'm not fully familiar with sudocode-server enough to know all blockers, but already I can think of:

• .sudocode/*.jsonl files can desync, especially after git operations. I have experienced this myself. I can fix this issue with sudocode import/sync commands, but I never ran them while the server was still running. I don't know if having the server
• sudocode-server uses port 3000 by default, which is commonly used. Could conflict.
• having the server run constantly is a waste of compute resources. That said, the service can still be use to run in the background on-demand if the cli is updated as described.

Service files

For each environment, replace $USER with your username. Replace $SUDOCODE-SERVER with the output of which sudocode-server.

Linux systemd

~/.config/systemd/user/sudocode-server.service:

[Unit]
Description=Sudocode MCP Server
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
WorkingDirectory=/home/$USER
ExecStart=$SUDOCODE-SERVER

# Logging
StandardOutput=journal
StandardError=journal
SyslogIdentifier=sudocode-server

# Restart behavior
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=5

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

To enable, run:
systemctl --user daemon-reload
systemctl --user enable --now sudocode-server.service

To access logs, run:
journalctl --user -t sudocode-server -f

macOS LaunchAgent

~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.sudocode.server.plist:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN"
 "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.sudocode.server</string>

    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>$SUDOCODE-SERVER</string>
    </array>

    <key>WorkingDirectory</key>
    <string>/Users/$USER</string>

    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>

    <key>KeepAlive</key>
    <true/>

    <key>StandardOutPath</key>
    <string>/tmp/sudocode-server.log</string>

    <key>StandardErrorPath</key>
    <string>/tmp/sudocode-server.error.log</string>
</dict>
</plist>

Then run:
launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.sudocode.server.plist
launchctl start com.sudocode.server

To access logs, run:
tail -f /tmp/sudocode-server.log

Windows

I don't have a Windows machine, so I can't test. Cursory searching shows npm install can call a powershell script, which can call ScheduleTask and create the service. Alternatively, wsl2 supports systemd, but not by default.

[dmophir]

Previously, I used git to reset issues.jsonl and had to resync sudocode due to a database issue. This problem has ameliorated after some updates, but still occurs on 0.1.9. With sudocode-server running as a service via systemd, I ran
sudocode import --input ./sudocode && sudocode sync --to-markdown and successfully corrected the webUI. While there may be other conflicts with the server running continuously, jsonl desync isn't one of them

[alexngai]

this is a great idea and we'll add this to our roadmap. I'm still weighing the different options. do you prefer this approach to something like packaging the server as a electron/tauri app that can run in the background from your system tray?