Witr
Dev tools
process debugging cli
SHOW HN2025
526points
105comments
#62of 3,837 in 2025
Top 2%of 2025 by points
How HN took it
MixedNo clear lean
21 positive, 12 neutral or asking, 2 mixed, 8 critical, out of 43 comments about the project. Thread score +0.33.
Idea: 6 for, 1 againstExecution: 1 for, 3 againstDocs: 1 for, 2 againstPrivacy: 0 for, 2 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Useful tool for quickly explaining process origin
From 3 comments
i definitely see the use for it, lots of moments where i wonder how or why something was started.
4ggr0 on HNThis is extremely useful, will be added to the toolbox. Thanks for sharing.
properbrew on HNWorth mentioning: I had claude code find a crypto miner on an infected system which had been running for ~5 months undetected. Up-to-date windows 10 machine. Single prompt saying…
tototrains on HN
Clean readme and simple focused design
From 2 comments
This is great. One of those things that just formats and does all the little niggling things you have to do sometimes. I like that it is simple, and doesn't (thank god) need npm…
scrame on HNVery nice README, too.
dxdm on HN
Objections
Installing via curl is untrustworthy; wants packages
From 2 comments
Sounds like something I could use, but installing a binary via `curl` doesn't sit right with me. Next problem you have is "explain how this thing was installed on my system"…
vzaliva on HNThis is amazing and really useful to me. Great job. However, I can’t use it in a production business environment for the same reasons other users mentioned earlier. A Debian or…
cedsam on HN
Relies on /proc, which malware could spoof
From 2 comments
I'd not trust any app that parses /proc to obtain process information (for reasons [0]), specially if the machine has been compromised (unless by "incident", the author means…
gus_ on HNRegardless of code correctness, it's easy enough for malware to spoof process relationships.
Retr0id on HN
Reports parent process as reason, not the real why
From 1 comment
seems handy but mostly the ppid is outputted as the reason for starting. its 'who dun it', not really _why_ it was started. (service file, autorun, execve etc.) i see you support…
saidnooneever on HN
Requests
Provide deb, rpm or other system packages
From 2 comments
Sounds like something I could use, but installing a binary via `curl` doesn't sit right with me. Next problem you have is "explain how this thing was installed on my system"…
vzaliva on HNThis is amazing and really useful to me. Great job. However, I can’t use it in a production business environment for the same reasons other users mentioned earlier. A Debian or…
cedsam on HN
Add macOS support
From 2 comments
Brilliant stuff! Any plan to support macos?
jsomedon on HNGood job BTW any chance you would make MacOS version of this?
Sayyidalijufri on HN
Show package manager info about the binary
From 1 comment
Looking up the binary in the package management system would also provide another source of useful information. Of course this would dramatically increase the complexity but…
filterfish on HN
Questions
Does it detect git repository and branch?
From 1 comment
What does this means for context: “Git repository name and branch” Does this mean it detects if something is running from within a git repository folder? Couldn’t find the code…
DougN7 on HN
Why not use systemctl status or lsof instead?
From 2 comments
Note that you can do a lot of this by just querying systemctl with the PID ``` systemctl status 1 ``` And there might be more than one process using a port ``` sudo lsof +c 0…
xk3 on HN`ps uaxf` gives me pretty similar output.
wyldfire on HN
Alternatives named
systemctl status
From 2 comments
`systemctl status $pid` will get you a lot
klooney on HNNote that you can do a lot of this by just querying systemctl with the PID ``` systemctl status 1 ``` And there might be more than one process using a port ``` sudo lsof +c 0…
xk3 on HN
ps uaxf
From 1 comment
`ps uaxf` gives me pretty similar output.
wyldfire on HN
pstree
From 1 comment
pstree doesn't answer the why?
q2dg on HN
lsof
From 1 comment
Note that you can do a lot of this by just querying systemctl with the PID ``` systemctl status 1 ``` And there might be more than one process using a port ``` sudo lsof +c 0…
xk3 on HN
whatis
From 1 comment
Is that not `whatis`? https://www.man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/whatis.1.html
darrenf on HN