If you’ve ever worked with Terraform, you know how time-consuming it can be to wait for a terraform apply or terraform plan to complete. It’s easy to get distracted by other tasks, only to realize hours later that your Terraform run finished (or failed) without you noticing or kept hanging waiting for your approval. This was a problem I faced regularly, and it inspired me to build a solution: Completion Notifier Notifier.
The Problem: Context Switching and Distractions
As a developer, I often find myself juggling multiple tasks at once. When running Terraform, I’d start a command, switch to another task, and completely lose track of whether the process had finished or encountered an error. This constant context-switching was not only frustrating but also inefficient. I needed a way to stay informed about the status of my Terraform runs without having to constantly check the terminal.
That’s when the idea for Completion Notifier was born. I wanted a simple tool that would notify me when a specific process like a terraform run was complete, whether it succeeded or failed. The goal was to eliminate the need for constant monitoring and allow me to focus on other tasks without worrying about missing important updates.
The Solution: A Simple Rust-Based Notifier
I started by building a minimalistic tool in Rust that would monitor a process and send a desktop notification when it completed. The idea was straightforward, pass the same usual command to as a argument and get a notification when the process finishes. The first version of Completion Notifier did exactly that, and it worked like a charm.
For example, after running terraform apply, Completion Notifier will send a desktop notification once it was done. This small but powerful feature saved me a lot of time and mental energy, allowing me to stay productive without constantly checking the terminal.
Final Thoughts
Building Completion Notifier has been a rewarding experience, and I’m excited to see how it evolves over time. What started as a simple solution to a personal pain point has grown into a tool with the potential to help others in similar situations. I’ll be sharing more updates and insights in future blog posts, so stay tuned!
Thanks for reading, and I hope you find Completion Notifier as useful as I do. Until next time, happy coding!