# leahneukirchen/nq

Unix command line queue utility

Repository: https://github.com/leahneukirchen/nq
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/nq
Language: C
License: NOASSERTION
License Family: other
Last push: 2025-10-26T20:11:14+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 54/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 49, release rhythm 35, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 4051, "days_push": 311, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_releases, no_license
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 3127, forks 69 (observed 2026-08-28T04:07:44.497512+00:00)

## What it is
nq is a set of tiny Unix command-line utilities for creating lightweight, ad-hoc job queues with no daemons, setup, or supervision. It enforces strict job ordering using flock(2) on timestamped log files, running entirely on the filesystem level.

## Use cases
- queue shell commands to run one at a time without a daemon
- run make targets sequentially in the background
- create a simple download queue shared across terminals
- use as a glorified nohup for long-running jobs
- run benchmarks in several configurations sequentially
- check job status and wait for queued jobs to finish

## When to choose
- you need a zero-setup, single-machine job queue
- you want strict FIFO execution order without a long-running scheduler
- you prefer simple POSIX-compliant Unix tools over heavyweight queue systems
- you need ad-hoc background job execution with per-job log files

## When to avoid
- you need a distributed or multi-machine queue
- you require job priorities, retries, or complex scheduling
- you need a web UI or REST API for job management
- you have very high job volumes, since operations scale quadratically with lock files

## Facets
- artifact type: cli-tool
- maturity: stable
- function: cli, scheduling, workflow-automation, developer-tools
- domain: developer-tools
- platform: bsd, cli, cross-platform
- tags: job-queue, posix, flock, no-daemon, batch-processing, unix-utilities, command-line, automation, linux, macos

## Member repositories
- leahneukirchen/nq (main) score 54

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:07:44.497512+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T07:26:21.558662+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/leahneukirchen/nq (fetched 2026-08-28T04:07:44.497512+00:00, sha 4577713ee719)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.