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Usage

Yell can be used in various ways to alert you about the completion of tasks. Below are some common usage examples.

Type of Alerts​

Yell supports different types of alerts to notify you about task completion:

Beep (default)​

Plays a generated terminal sound. Examples:

yell

Or:

yell --beep

Sound​

Plays a MP3 sound. Example:

yell --sound

Go to configuration page to learn more.

WhatsApp​

Sends an alert message to a WhatsApp group. Example:

yell --wpp --group "Group Name" --message "Task completed"
info

To use WhatsApp alerts, you need to configure your WhatsApp API credentials executing the following command.

yell config whatsapp

It will show a QR code that you need to scan with your WhatsApp to authenticate the API access.
The credentials will be stored in your machine, and it only needs to be done once.

Command Monitoring​

You can use Yell to execute a command and alert you when it finishes. For example:

yell --sound on complete command -- sleep 5

In the example above, Yell will play a sound notification when the sleep command completes after 5 seconds.

Another example:

yell --wpp --group "Group Name" --message "Task completed" on complete command -- sleep 5

In the example above, Yell will send a WhatsApp message to the specified group when the sleep command completes after 5 seconds.

Command Flags​

Yell supports the following flags for command alerts:

  • --timeout or -t: Define the maximum wait time for the command to complete. If not specified, will wait indefinitely.

    Example:

    yell --sound on complete command --timeout 2 -- sleep 5

    In the example above, Yell will wait 2 seconds before killing the command execution, and still play a sound notification.

  • --output or -o: Attach the command output to yell output, this way you can see the command output. If not set, the output will be hidden.

    Example:

    yell --sound on complete command --output -- echo "Hello, World!"

    In the example above, Yell will show Hello, World! in the output.

Process Monitoring​

Yell can also monitor processes and alert you when they exit. For example:

sleep 10 &   
    [1] 3835
yell --sound on complete process --pid 3835

In the example above, sleep command was called in the background printing the process id (PID), and Yell was called after to play a sound notification when the process with PID 3835 exits.

Process Flags​

Yell supports the following flags for process alerts:

info

Only one of the flags can be used at a time. If all three flags are specified, Yell will stop after finding the first match in the following sequence: --pid, --name, --contains.

  • --pid or -p: Define the process ID to monitor.

    Example:

    yell --sound on complete process --pid 3835

    In the example above, Yell will wait for the process to complete/exits, and then play a sound notification.

  • --name or -n: Define the process name to monitor.

    Example:

    yell --sound on complete process --name "sleep"

    In the example above, Yell will wait for the process with the name "sleep" to complete/exits, and then play a sound notification.

  • --contains or -c: Define a substring to match against the process name.

    Example:

    yell --sound on complete process --contains "sl"

    In the example above, Yell will wait for any process with a name containing "sl" to complete/exits, and then play a sound notification.

No Monitoring​

It's possible to use alerts without using monitoring.

Example:

sleep 5 && yell --sound