tenement

Hyperlightweight process hypervisor for single-server deployments.

tenement spawns and supervises processes with Unix socket communication, health checks, and automatic restarts. No Docker, no Kubernetes, no complexity—just fast, simple process management.

Installation

curl -LsSf https://tenement.dev/install.sh | sh

Or with pip/uv:

pip install tenement
# or
uv tool install tenement

Or with Cargo:

cargo install tenement

Why tenement?

Alternative	Problem
Docker	Heavy, slow cold starts, network overhead
systemd	No on-demand spawn, no routing
K8s/Nomad	Overkill for single server
Bash scripts	No health checks, no supervision

tenement gives you:

• Sub-second cold starts - Rust binaries + Unix sockets = instant
• On-demand spawn - Processes start when first requested
• Auto-restart - Health checks with automatic recovery
• Zero overhead - Direct Unix socket IPC, no network layer
• Simple config - One TOML file defines everything

Quick Start

1. Create a config file

# tenement.toml
[process.api]
command = "./my-api"
socket = "/tmp/api-{id}.sock"
health = "/health"

[process.api.env]
DATABASE_PATH = "{data_dir}/{id}/app.db"

2. Spawn an instance

$ tenement spawn api --id user123
Spawned api:user123
Socket: /tmp/api-user123.sock

3. List running instances

$ tenement ps
INSTANCE             SOCKET                         UPTIME     HEALTH
api:user123          /tmp/api-user123.sock          2m         healthy
api:user456          /tmp/api-user456.sock          5m         healthy

4. Stop when done

$ tenement stop api:user123
Stopped api:user123

How It Works

tenement spawn api --id user123
    │
    ├── Read process config from tenement.toml
    │
    ├── Interpolate variables: {id}, {data_dir}, {socket}
    │
    ├── Spawn process with env vars
    │   └── Process listens on Unix socket
    │
    └── Wait for socket ready (~10ms)

tenement manages process templates (defined in config) and instances (spawned at runtime). Each instance gets its own:

• Unix socket for communication
• Data directory for state
• Health monitoring

CLI Reference

tenement spawn <process> --id <id>  # Spawn new instance
tenement stop <process>:<id>        # Stop instance
tenement restart <process>:<id>     # Restart instance
tenement ps                         # List instances
tenement health <process>:<id>      # Check health
tenement config                     # Show config

Use Cases

Multi-tenant apps

Spawn a process per user, route requests by subdomain:

tenement spawn api --id alice   # alice.myapp.com
tenement spawn api --id bob     # bob.myapp.com

Dev environments

Fast iteration with instant restarts:

tenement restart api:dev

Microservices on a VPS

Run multiple services without container overhead:

[process.api]
command = "./api"

[process.worker]
command = "./worker"

[process.web]
command = "./web"

Next Steps

• Getting Started - Detailed setup guide
• Configuration - Full config reference

License

Apache 2.0 - Use it however you want.