joh/when-changed
Execute a command when a file is changed observed · 2026-08-28
Health v2 · maintenance only
32/100
- Activity 0
- Release rhythm 35
- Longevity 100
Flags: no_releases no_license
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: 5693
- days_rel: n/a
- days_push: 883
- n_releases_24m: 0
Adoption not part of the score
1228 stars · 103 forks observed · 2026-08-28
What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-30, confidence not recorded
when-changed is a Python command-line tool that watches files or directories and runs a specified command whenever a change is detected. It is built on the watchdog library and supports recursive watching, verbosity control, and event metadata via environment variables.
Use cases
- automatically recompile latex documents when the source file changes
- run tests whenever source code is saved
- rebuild a project on file modification
- trigger a script when a file is created, modified, moved, or deleted
- watch a directory recursively and run a command on changes
When to choose
- you want a simple, lightweight CLI to re-run a command on file changes
- you need cross-platform file watching from the terminal
- you want event details like file path and event type passed to your command
When to avoid
- you need advanced build orchestration or task runners like make or just
- you need a GUI file-watching tool
- you need complex multi-step pipelines with dependency graphs
Facets
cli-tool · maturity maintenance
developer-tools cli file-system workflow-automation developer-tools cross-platform python cli file-watching watchdog auto-run live-reload command-line automation
2 sources
- readme: https://github.com/joh/when-changed · fetched 2026-08-28 · 9a20405ccceb
- registry_pypi: https://pypi.org/pypi/when-changed/json · fetched 2026-08-29 · b1f078e75bb2
Member repositories
| Repository | Role | Health v2 |
|---|---|---|
| joh/when-changed | main | 32 |
For agents
markdown · JSON · MCP: product_card(name="joh/when-changed")
Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00 · Report a problem