Building a Custom Site Manager

Managing a static site often involves juggling multiple terminal windows: one for the preview server, one for the editor, and another for git commands. It gets messy fast.

Today, I built a custom Site Manager Assistant to solve this.

The Problem

I constantly had orphan `python -m http.server` processes running in the background. I'd forget to kill them, leading to "Address already in use" errors and general system clutter.

The Solution

I upgraded my existing Python TUI (built with Textual) to handle the entire lifecycle.

Key Features

1. Integrated Server Control: I can start and stop the local preview server directly from the dashboard. No more separate terminal tabs. 2. Live Logs: Server logs are piped directly into the TUI, so I can catch 404s or 500s instantly. 3. Automated Cleanup: A wrapper script (`manage_site.sh`) ensures that whenever I close the app, all background processes are killed.

How it Works

The backend uses Python's `subprocess` module to manage the server process. It captures the PID and uses `os.killpg` to ensure the entire process group is terminated when requested.

def stop_server(self):
    os.killpg(os.getpgid(self.process.pid), 15)

Now, I have a single "Command Center" for my entire blog workflow.