A smart systemd service and Docker restart tool. For systemd, it intelligently chooses between restart and stop/start based on service capabilities.

• 🔍 Smart Detection: Automatically determines if a service supports restart or needs stop/start
• 🎯 Service State Checking: Shows current service status before and after operations
• ⚡ Fast & Reliable: Built in Rust for performance and safety
• 🛡️ Error Handling: Comprehensive error messages and status reporting
• 🎨 User Friendly: Clean CLI with emoji indicators and helpful output
• 🐳 Docker Compose Integration: Automatically detects and manages Docker compose stacks

git clone https://github.com/andygeorge/tickle
cd tickle
cargo build --release
sudo cp target/release/tickle /usr/local/bin/

cargo install --git https://github.com/andygeorge/tickle#0.4.0

# Restart a service (smart detection)
tickle nginx

# Force stop/start instead of restart
tickle --stop-start apache2
tickle -s postgresql

When run without arguments in a directory containing a compose file, tickle will:

• Detect the first available compose file (docker-compose.yml, docker-compose.yaml, compose.yml, compose.yaml, container-compose.yml, container-compose.yaml)
• Execute docker compose down followed by docker compose up -d

# In a Docker Compose project directory
tickle                    # Will restart entire compose stack

# Restart specific service in a compose file
tickle nginx              # Will restart just the nginx service

# Restart nginx (will use 'systemctl restart' if supported)
$ sudo tickle nginx
📊 Current state of nginx: Active
🎯 Using strategy: Restart
🔄 Attempting to restart nginx...
✅ Successfully restarted nginx
🎉 Tickle completed successfully!
📊 Final state: Active

# Restart a oneshot service (will use stop/start)
$ sudo tickle --stop-start my-oneshot-service
📊 Current state of my-oneshot-service: Inactive
🎯 Using strategy: StopStart
🛑 Stopping my-oneshot-service...
▶️ Starting my-oneshot-service...
✅ Successfully stopped and started my-oneshot-service
🎉 Tickle completed successfully!
📊 Final state: Active

# Restart entire Docker Compose stack (in compose project directory)
$ tickle
🐳 Compose file detected: docker-compose.yml. Performing `docker compose down`...
🚀 Bringing stack back up in detached mode...
✅ Compose stack restarted.
🎉 Compose tickle completed successfully!

1. Service Detection: Checks if the service exists and what type it is
2. Strategy Selection:
   • Uses systemctl restart for services that support it
   • Falls back to systemctl stop then systemctl start for services that don't
3. State Verification: Shows service state before and after the operation

• ✅ Simple/Forking Services: Uses restart
• ✅ Notify Services: Uses restart
• ✅ Oneshot with RemainAfterExit: Uses restart
• ✅ Oneshot without RemainAfterExit: Uses stop/start
• ✅ All Other Types: Smart detection with fallback

• Linux system with systemd
• systemctl command available
• Docker CLI installed (for compose functionality)
• Appropriate permissions (usually requires sudo for system services)

• -s, --stop-start: Force stop/start strategy instead of restart
• -h, --help: Show help message
• No arguments: When run without arguments in a compose project directory, will restart entire Docker Compose stack

# Build
cargo build

# Run tests
cargo test

# Run with debug output
RUST_LOG=debug cargo run -- nginx

# Build optimized release
cargo build --release

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