Hot Reload

Runix can reload its configuration file without restarting the daemon or interrupting healthy processes.

Usage

# Reload config via CLI
runix config reload

# Or send SIGHUP to the daemon (if supported)

How It Works

Config Diffing

The internal/config/hotreload.go module computes the diff between old and new configs:

func DiffConfigs(old, new *types.RunixConfig) *ConfigDiff

What the diff detects

Change	Action
New process added	Start the new process
Process removed	Stop and remove the process
Process config changed	Reload (graceful restart) the process
Process unchanged	No action — process continues running
Defaults changed	Applied to processes on next restart
Cron jobs changed	Update scheduler
New cron job	Register with scheduler
Removed cron job	Unregister from scheduler

Diff Output

[Runix] Configuration changes:
  + process "worker" added
  - process "legacy-api" removed
  ~ process "api" env.PORT changed: "8080" → "9090"
  ~ defaults.max_restarts changed: 5 → 10

Safety Guarantees

• Validation first — The new config is validated before any changes are applied
• No disruption — Unchanged processes continue running without interruption
• Rollback on failure — If applying changes fails, the daemon keeps the old config

Config Reload Without Daemon

If the daemon is not running, runix config reload still reads and validates the config:

runix config reload
# [Runix] Config reloaded (daemon not running, changes apply on next start)

What's Next

• Configuration Reference — Full YAML schema
• Daemon — How the daemon manages config
• CLI: Config Reload — Command reference