Ross ROSS = Recommend OSS · open-source software intelligence for agents

hpcloud/tail

Go package for reading from continously updated files (tail -f) observed · 2026-08-28

github.com/hpcloud/tail · Go · MIT (permissive) observed · 2026-08-28

Health v2 · maintenance only

32/100

  • Activity 0
  • Release rhythm 35
  • Longevity 100

Flags: no_releases

How is this computed?

round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10) — computed 2026-09-03. Adoption (stars, forks) is never an input.

  • gap_med: n/a
  • age_days: 4958
  • days_rel: n/a
  • days_push: 1408
  • n_releases_24m: 0

Full methodology

Adoption not part of the score

2780 stars · 502 forks observed · 2026-08-28

What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-30, confidence not recorded

A Go library that emulates the BSD `tail -f` behavior, streaming lines from files that are continuously updated. It supports truncation and move detection for compatibility with log rotation tools.

Use cases

  • follow log files in a Go application
  • stream new lines from a growing file like tail -f
  • monitor nginx or app logs in real time
  • handle log rotation while tailing files
  • build a log watcher service in Go

When to choose

  • you need tail -f functionality inside a Go program
  • you must handle log truncation and rotation gracefully
  • you want a simple channel-based line streaming API

When to avoid

  • you need full Windows support
  • you need an actively developed project with recent maintenance
  • you just need tail on the command line rather than in code

Facets

library · maturity maintenance

file-system streaming developer-tools developer-tools files backend go cross-platform tail-f log-following log-rotation file-watching linux macos

1 source

Member repositories

RepositoryRoleHealth v2
hpcloud/tailmain32

For agents

markdown · JSON · MCP: product_card(name="hpcloud/tail")

Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00 · Report a problem