witr (short for “Why is this running?”) is a cross-platform command-line utility designed to explain the origin and cause of running processes, services, or anything bound to a port. Traditional tools show what is running, but witr goes a step further by correlating that state across process supervisors, containers, or system services to build a narrative of why the item exists. It supports major operating systems including Linux, macOS, Windows, and FreeBSD, and produces human-readable output that succinctly shows the causal ancestry of a process (e.g., systemd → pm2 → node). witr aims to reduce the time it takes to diagnose processes, especially during debugging or outage investigations, by providing context that would otherwise require manual analysis across multiple tools.
Features
- Explains process origins with causal ancestry chains
- Works with processes, service names, and ports
- Cross-platform support (Linux, macOS, Windows, FreeBSD)
- Human-readable default output with JSON option
- Zero configuration and safe read-only operation
- Supports contextual information like container, service, or git repo context
Project Samples
