#DevWatch — Turning GNOME into a Developer-Aware OS

Pawan Eswaran — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 05:55:36 +0000

Most developer tools on Linux are process-centric.

But we don’t think in processes.

We think in:

projects
services
ports
builds

So i built DevWatch — a GNOME Shell extension that makes your desktop understand your development workflow.

🧠 What is DevWatch?

DevWatch transforms GNOME from a generic desktop into a developer-aware operating layer.

Instead of showing random PIDs and CPU usage, it tells you:

👉 Which project is running what
👉 Which port belongs to which service
👉 What your dev environment is actually doing

The DevWatch Panel

When you click the DevWatch button in your GNOME panel, the dropdown gives you a complete, real-time view of your development environment.

🧾 Header Bar

Live stats showing:
- number of active projects
- number of open ports
- total RAM usage
Stop All Projects — instantly kills all running dev processes
Settings — opens the preferences window

🔍 Running Projects

Each project is shown as an expandable card:

Service-oriented view 👉 shows "Python Server" instead of raw python3.12
Stop Project — kills all processes in that project
Open Terminal — opens gnome-terminal at the project’s git root

🌐 Open Ports

Highlights dev ports (3000, 5173, 8080, etc.) with colored dots
Shows project name linked to each port
Stop button kills the process using that port
Displays runtime (how long the port has been active)

📷 Sessions

Save — name and store your current workspace
Last Workspace — auto-saved every refresh (persists across reboots)
Resume — restores terminals, services, and editors
Delete — remove saved sessions

⚡ Build Activity

Shows live builds with:
- elapsed time
- CPU usage
Recent Builds — collapsible history with:
- duration
- peak CPU usage
Detects builds from:
- npm, cargo, make, go build, gradle, webpack, vite, tsc, gcc, and more
Build history persists across reboots

⚠ Problems (Conditional Section)

Appears only when issues are detected:

⚠ trackitte using 3.2 GB RAM
⚠ backend CPU at 92%

🧠 Why I Built This

As a developer, I kept doing things like:

lsof -i :3000 ps aux | grep node kill -9 <pid>

And I realized:

Why is my OS not aware of my projects?

DevWatch is my attempt to fix that.

What I Need From You

I’d love honest feedback from developers:

Specifically:
• Does this solve a real problem for you?
• What feature would you actually use daily?
• What feels unnecessary?
• What would make you install this instantly?

Try It Out !!!

👉 GitHub:
https://github.com/Adithya-Balan/DevWatch

(Installation steps are in the README)

🙌 Feedback Welcome

This is still evolving — and I want to shape it around real developer workflows, not assumptions.

👉 Drop your thoughts, critiques, or feature ideas below in the comments.

Even harsh feedback is welcome — that’s how this gets better 🚀

DEV Community: Pawan Eswaran