`brb`

Run a command. Walk away. Get notified when it finishes. brb wraps your command, waits for it to complete, then sends a completion event to your configured channels.

Best used for long builds, test suites, CI-like local scripts, data jobs, and deploy commands.

Setup

Install from cargo:

cargo install brb-cli

Then setup like so:

# create global config
brb init

# check where config is stored
brb config path

# run something and notify default channels
brb cargo test

# override channels for one run
brb --channel desktop --channel ci-webhook pnpm test

Usage

brb [--channel <channel-id> ...] <command> [args...]
brb init
brb channels list
brb channels validate
brb channels test <channel-id>
brb config
brb config path
brb --help
brb --version

If your wrapped command begins with flags, separate with --:

brb --channel desktop -- --version

Cookbook

Goal	Command
Run with defaults	`brb cargo test`
Use one specific channel	`brb --channel desktop cargo test`
Use multiple channels	`brb --channel desktop --channel ci-webhook pnpm test`
Validate config	`brb channels validate`
Send test notification	`brb channels test desktop`
Print config path	`brb config path`

Config

A fully commented example is included at assets/examples/config.yml.

Channel Types

Type	Purpose	Required Fields	Optional Fields
`desktop`	Local desktop notification	`type`	none
`webhook`	HTTP JSON event delivery	`type`, `url`	`method` (default `POST`), `headers`
`custom`	Execute your own notifier process	`type`, `exec`	`args`, `env`

Custom

custom channels receive one JSON event on stdin.

exec supports:

Bare command name: resolved via PATH.
Relative path: resolved from the working directory where brb is launched.
Absolute path: used directly.

Sample notifier executable: assets/examples/brb-channel-log.sh

Reads stdin JSON (payload="$(cat)").
Appends raw payload to a log file.
Prints an optional summary if jq is available.

Payload shape:

{
  "tool": "brb",
  "status": "success",
  "command": ["pnpm", "test"],
  "cwd": "/path/to/project",
  "started_at": "2026-02-22T12:00:00.000Z",
  "finished_at": "2026-02-22T12:00:03.250Z",
  "duration_ms": 3250,
  "exit_code": 0,
  "host": "my-machine"
}

brb-cli 1.0.0