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helix restart

Stop the running daemon (if any) and start a new one against the given flow file. Equivalent to helix stop && sleep 1 && helix start <file>, with a one-second pause between to let the kernel release the previous process's listeners.

Usage

helix restart <file|directory>

Flags

This subcommand takes no flags. The target argument is forwarded to helix start; configure the daemon's behavior through the flow YAML's helix: block.

Behavior notes

  • Requires $HELIX_LICENSE. Verified at process start, before any PID work happens.
  • If /tmp/helix.pid points to a live process, calls cmdStop() internally and waits 1 second before launching the new daemon. Stop errors are logged as warnings but do not abort the start.
  • If no daemon is running, restart is identical to start.
  • The replacement daemon writes a fresh /tmp/helix.pid, truncates /tmp/helix.log, and runs the same 2-second post-launch sanity check as helix start (prints the last 10 log lines if the child has already exited).

Examples

Pick up edits to a flow file:

$EDITOR app.yaml
helix restart app.yaml
helix status

Cycle the daemon under load (the engine drains in-flight exchanges during the SIGTERM grace window):

helix restart app.yaml

Source

cmd/helix/main.go lines 1340-1356 (cmdRestart)

See also