PortSlayer ⚡

Cross-platform CLI + interactive TUI to list active ports and safely kill processes by port number.

---

Features

• Interactive TUI dashboard — just run pk (or portslayer): arrow keys to navigate, / to search, k to kill, live auto-refresh
• Short alias — every command works as both portslayer <cmd> and the 2-letter pk <cmd>
• List all active ports — port, PID, process name, protocol, state, addresses
• Filter by port number, process name, or protocol (TCP/UDP)
• Kill processes by port or by process name — with mandatory confirmation before any destructive action
• JSON output (--json) for scripting, plus built-in shell completion (--install-completion)
• Cross-platform — Linux (via ss/lsof), Windows (via netstat/taskkill), macOS (via lsof)
• Install however you like — pip, npx/npm, or uvx

---

Tech Stack

Layer	Technology	Reason
TUI	Python + Textual	Full-screen keyboard-driven dashboard, no extra runtime for users
CLI	Python + Typer + Rich	Single language, beautiful tables, type-safe commands
Core	Pure Python stdlib	No external dependencies for port scanning / killing
Tests	pytest	Simple, fast, widely adopted
Packaging	pyproject.toml (setuptools)	PEP 517/518 standard, pip-installable

---

Installation

Pick whichever package manager you already have — they all install the same tool.

pip install portslayer              # Python / pip — requires Python >= 3.9
npx @appestox/portslayer            # Node.js — try it with zero install
npm install -g @appestox/portslayer # Node.js — install permanently
uvx portslayer                      # zero-install, no Python setup needed

Homebrew and Scoop manifests live in packaging/ but are not published to a public tap/bucket yet.

The npm package is a thin wrapper that installs the same portslayer PyPI package underneath — see packaging/ for how each is built and published.

Minimum supported versions

Method	Requirements
pip install portslayer	Python 3.9+
npx @appestox/portslayer / npm install -g	Node 14+ and Python 3.9+ (the wrapper pip-installs the PyPI package; it does not install Python for you)
uvx portslayer	uv — it downloads a compatible Python automatically

If pip says No matching distribution found for portslayer, your Python is older than 3.9 — check with python --version and upgrade.

Install from source

git clone https://github.com/AppestoX/portslayer.git
cd portslayer
pip install -e ".[dev]"

Linux — additional notes

No extra system packages required. ss is available by default on all modern Linux distributions (iproute2). lsof is used as a fallback if ss is not available.

To see processes owned by other users you must run with sudo:

sudo portslayer list

Windows — additional notes

Run PowerShell or Command Prompt as Administrator to see all processes. netstat and taskkill are built into every Windows installation.

---

Usage

Interactive TUI (recommended)

pk

(pk is the short alias for portslayer — both commands are identical and installed together; use whichever you prefer. The rest of this doc uses portslayer for clarity, but pk works everywhere it does.)

Launches a full-screen dashboard — no flags to remember:

Key	Action
↑ / ↓	Navigate the port list
/	Search/filter (port, process, protocol, state)
k / Del	Kill the selected process (asks to confirm)
r	Refresh now (auto-refreshes every 3s anyway)
Esc	Clear search
q	Quit

CLI

List all active ports

portslayer list

Sample output:

╭────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│           Active Ports (24 entries)                                │
├──────┬──────────┬─────────────┬───────┬────────────┬──────────────┤
│ Port │ Protocol │ State       │   PID │ Process    │ Local Address│
├──────┼──────────┼─────────────┼───────┼────────────┼──────────────┤
│   22 │ TCP      │ LISTEN      │   783 │ sshd       │ 0.0.0.0:22  │
│   80 │ TCP      │ LISTEN      │  1042 │ nginx      │ 0.0.0.0:80  │
│ 5432 │ TCP      │ LISTEN      │  2103 │ postgres   │ 127.0.0.1:… │
╰──────┴──────────┴─────────────┴───────┴────────────┴──────────────╯

Filter ports

# By exact port number
portslayer list --port 443

# By partial port prefix — matches every port starting with these digits
portslayer list --port 808   # -> 8080, 8081, 8083, ...

# By process name (partial match)
portslayer list --process nginx

# By protocol
portslayer list --protocol tcp

# Only LISTENING ports
portslayer list --listening

# Combine filters
portslayer list --protocol tcp --listening

Inspect a specific port — or a partial prefix

portslayer find 8080   # exact port
portslayer find 808    # partial prefix -> matches 8080, 8081, 8083, ...

Typing fewer digits is a feature, not an error — no need to remember or type the full number if you just want to see everything in that range.

Kill the process on a port

portslayer kill 3000

kill always requires an exact port number (not a prefix) — this is a deliberate safety choice so a mistyped digit can't broaden which processes get terminated. Use find/list with a prefix first to see what's there, then kill the exact port you want.

# Kill by process name instead of port (kills every port that process owns)
portslayer kill --name node

PortSlayer will:

1. Show full process details
2. Ask for explicit confirmation
3. Kill the process only after y is entered

# Skip confirmation (use with care)
portslayer kill 3000 --force

Scripting with JSON output

list and find both accept --json for piping into jq or other tools instead of printing a table:

portslayer list --json | jq '.[] | select(.protocol == "TCP")'
portslayer find 808 --json

Shell completion

Typer wires this up automatically — no extra setup needed:

portslayer --install-completion   # installs completion for your current shell

Version

portslayer --version

---

Project Structure

portslayer/
├── portslayer/
│   ├── __init__.py          # Package version / metadata
│   ├── cli.py               # Typer CLI (list / find / kill) — bare invocation launches the TUI
│   ├── tui.py                # Textual interactive dashboard
│   ├── core/
│   │   ├── __init__.py
│   │   ├── models.py        # PortInfo dataclass
│   │   ├── port_scanner.py  # Platform-specific scanning + parsers
│   │   └── process_killer.py# Safe process termination
│   └── utils/
│       ├── __init__.py
│       ├── platform_utils.py# OS detection, admin check
│       └── validators.py    # Port number validation
├── tests/
│   ├── test_validators.py
│   ├── test_port_scanner.py
│   └── test_process_killer.py
├── packaging/
│   ├── npm/                 # npm wrapper package (`npx @appestox/portslayer`)
│   ├── homebrew/            # Homebrew tap formula
│   └── scoop/                # Scoop bucket manifest
├── pyproject.toml
├── requirements.txt
├── requirements-dev.txt
├── LICENSE
└── README.md

---

Running Tests

pip install -e ".[dev]"
pytest

With coverage:

pytest --cov=portslayer --cov-report=term-missing

---

Security

Concern	Mitigation
Command injection	All subprocess calls use explicit argument lists — never shell=True
Input validation	Port numbers are validated (regex + range check) before any system call
Confirmation requirement	Every kill operation requires explicit user confirmation
Privilege transparency	Users are warned when not running as root/Administrator
PID validation	PID existence is verified before sending signals

PortSlayer never executes raw shell input from the user.

---

Platform-Specific Commands Used

Platform	List ports	Get process names	Kill process
Linux	ss -tulnp → lsof -i -n -P	embedded in ss output	os.kill(pid, SIGKILL)
Windows	netstat -ano	tasklist /FO CSV /NH	taskkill /PID <pid> /F
macOS	lsof -i -n -P	embedded in lsof	os.kill(pid, SIGKILL)

---

Publishing (maintainers)

Order matters — the npm, Homebrew, and Scoop packages all install the PyPI package under the hood, so PyPI goes first.

1. PyPI (source of truth):

   python -m pip install build twine
   python -m build
   twine upload dist/*

2. npm wrapper (packaging/npm/) — bump version in packaging/npm/package.json to match the PyPI release, then:

   cd packaging/npm && npm publish

3. Homebrew tap (packaging/homebrew/) — see packaging/homebrew/README.md for generating dependency resource blocks and the sdist checksum, then push to your homebrew-portslayer tap repo.
4. Scoop bucket (packaging/scoop/) — see packaging/scoop/README.md for the checksum step, then push to your bucket repo. Winget requires a compiled installer and is documented as a follow-up in the same file.

---

Contributing

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch: git checkout -b feat/my-feature
3. Run tests: pytest
4. Open a pull request

---

License

MIT — free to use, modify, and distribute.