"pacer" cli for throttling / debouncing events

[bradennapier]

I use yabai and sketchybar and some events like title updates happen so frequently that i wanted to implement some atomic debounce/throttle handling to how often the events actually run commands... including across diff events since my events (using flock) basically are used to create a sketchybar that provides multi-monitor and multi-space handling on each monitor :

MIN_SPACES_PER_MONITOR=4

# events are debounced as spaces are created / destroyed very often when not actually changing them
yabai -m signal --add event=space_destroyed action="pacer --throttle setup_spaces 5000 yabai_setup_spaces --spaces ${MIN_SPACES_PER_MONITOR}"
yabai -m signal --add event=space_created action="pacer --throttle setup_spaces 5000 yabai_setup_spaces --spaces ${MIN_SPACES_PER_MONITOR}"
yabai -m signal --add event=display_added action="pacer --throttle setup_spaces 5000 yabai_setup_spaces --spaces ${MIN_SPACES_PER_MONITOR}"
yabai -m signal --add event=display_removed action="pacer --throttle setup_spaces 5000 yabai_setup_spaces --spaces ${MIN_SPACES_PER_MONITOR}"

# Structural updates (debounced) - creates/removes items when windows/spaces change
yabai -m signal --add event=window_created action="pacer --throttle sketchybar_update 100 sketchybar_update.sh"
yabai -m signal --add event=window_destroyed action="pacer --throttle sketchybar_update 100 sketchybar_update.sh"
yabai -m signal --add event=window_moved action="pacer --throttle sketchybar_update 100 sketchybar_update.sh"
# IMPORTANT: this is debounce not throttle with same id so it coordinates with throttle events to be performant as possible
yabai -m signal --add event=window_title_changed action="pacer --debounce sketchybar_update 1000 sketchybar_update.sh"

Esp useful since with 4 monitors and manyh windows open and jumping around i get nice execution guarantees and cross-space window insights i can click on :) :

---

anyway - released a homebrew tap if interested in it since yabai / sketchybar the main use case i could realy think this would be most used for!

https://github.com/bradennapier/pacer

Copied name inspiration from https://tanstack.com/pacer/latest/docs/guides/which-pacer-utility-should-i-choose which is what made me want the util in first place (esp when i saw how often those scripts were running in background lol)