Process Interactive Kill is a command line tool that helps to find and kill process. It works like pkill command but search is interactive.

This tool is still under development

Table of Contents

• Table of Contents
• Features
• Installation
• Configuration
  • Application configuration
  • Multiple meta key names support
• Configuration Recipes
• Migration Guides
  • 0.30.x to 1.0
• Caveats
• Development
  • Supported Systems
  • Setup
  • Building

Features

Pik allows to fuzzy search processes by:

• Name - No prefix is required, just type process name, for example 'firefox'
• Cmd Path - Prefix search with '/', for example '/firefox'
• Arguments - Prefix search with '-' for example '-foo'. Please note that if you want to use this feature in cli you must add --, for example pik -- -foo
• Ports - Prefix search with ':' for example ':8080'
• Everywhere - Prefix search with '~' for example '~firefox'
• Select exact process by id - Prefix with '=' for example '=1234'
• Select process family (process + it's children) - Prefix with '@' for example '@1234'

After selecting process you can kill it with Ctrl + X (SIGTERM), or force kill it with Ctrl + Alt + X (SIGKILL)

Installation

Archives of precompiled binaries for pik are available for Linux, macOS and Windows.

On Arch Linux

pacman -S pik

On Fedora

sudo dnf copr enable rusty-jack/pik
sudo dnf install pik

On Tumbleweed

sudo zypper install pik

On Gentoo

It is available via lamdness overlay

sudo eselect repository enable lamdness
sudo emaint -r lamdness sync
sudo emerge -av sys-process/pik

On Windows with Scoop

scoop bucket add jacek-kurlit https://github.com/jacek-kurlit/scoop-bucket
scoop install pik

On macOS with Homebrew

brew tap jacek-kurlit/tap
brew install pik

On Ubuntu with Snap

snap install pik-tui

If you're a Rust programmer, pik can be installed with cargo.

cargo install pik

Alternatively, one can use cargo binstall to install a pik binary directly from GitHub:

cargo binstall pik

Configuration

Application configuration

You may set your preferences in config.toml file located in:

Platform	Config dir
Linux	/home/:username/.config/pik
MacOS	/home/:username/.config/pik or /Users/:username/Library/Application Support/pik
Windows	C:\Users\:username\.config\pik or C:\Users\:username\AppData\Roaming\pik

All options are optional, if skipped default values will be used. Some of config fields have cli arg equivalent. If both are set cli arg is preferred. Run pik -- --help to see cli options The authoritative default configuration lives in default_config.toml which will be overridden with your local config. If you want to see final configuration use pik --print-config command. Please refer to config for more details how to configure options,theme and key mappings, and to recipes for ready-to-use configuration snippets.

Multiple meta key names support

Pik supports combining multiple modifier keys (meta keys) in key bindings. You can use any combination of "ctrl", "alt", "shift", "super", "hyper", and "meta" modifiers together.

Examples:

[key_mappings]
# Single modifier
quit = ["ctrl+c"]

# Combined modifiers
toggle_debug = ["ctrl+alt+d"]

# Multiple bindings, with different modifier combinations, for the same action
toggle_help = ["ctrl+alt+h", "f1", "alt+shift+H"]

This allows for flexible keybinding configurations that can accommodate different user preferences and avoid conflicts with terminal or OS shortcuts.

Every binding is a list, even when it holds one key: quit = ["ctrl+c"]. The bare string form quit = "ctrl+c" is rejected with "invalid type: string, expected a sequence".

Combining shift with a letter: terminals report the shifted key as an uppercase character, so write the letter uppercase — "alt+shift+H", not "alt+shift+h". The lowercase form is accepted by the config parser and then never matches anything you press. Note that ctrl+shift+<letter> cannot be detected at all on Unix terminals: ctrl+shift+x and ctrl+x send the same bytes. That is why force_kill_process is bound to ctrl+alt+x, which every platform reports unambiguously.

Configuration Recipes

Ready-to-use snippets live in recipes.md: themes (Gruvbox, Catppuccin, Nord, terminal colors), readline and vim key mappings, macOS ignore paths, nerd font icons and a compact fullscreen layout.

A minimal config to start from:

screen_size = "fullscreen"

[ui]
icons = "nerd_font_v3"

Migration Guides

0.30.x to 1.0

Version 1.0 contains an embedded default_config.toml that is merged with your local config file. In some cases the merge result may not be what you intended.

Example:

Default config:

[ui.process_table.cell]
highlighted = { bg = "Yellow", add_modifier = "ITALIC" }

Your local config:

[ui.process_table.cell]
highlighted = { bg = "Red" }

Resolved result:

[ui.process_table.cell]
highlighted = { bg = "Red", add_modifier = "ITALIC" }

If you meant to remove a field inherited from the default config, you must be explicit about it:

highlighted = { bg = "Red", add_modifier = "" }

To inspect your fully resolved configuration, run pik -P.

Caveats

• Process name on linux system it is not always exe name also it is limited to 15 chars
• In linux process may appear on list but you are not allowed to get information about ports it uses. In such situations you need to run pik with root privileges

Development

Supported Systems

In theory pik is using coross compliant lib that allows to run it on all major platforms. In pratice I'm using linux and development is performed based on this OS. Pik will probably work on MacOs and Windows but that must be tested by community since I don't own computers with these OS'es. If you are able to test it on windows or macos please create issue to let me know.

Setup

• Rust 1.79+
• Cargo make link
• Cargo nextest link
• VHS link

Building

git clone https://github.com/jacek-kurlit/pik
cd pik
cargo build --release
./target/release/pik --version