iman — Ingenium Manager

iman is the CLI tool for managing the isman management server. It provides simple commands to start, stop, and check the status of the server process.

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Commands

Start the Server

iman start [--force|-f]

Starts the isman HTTP server. The tool automatically finds an available port (starting from 3000) and launches the server in the background.

Option	Description
--force, -f	Stop any existing server before starting a new one

Example:

# Start the server (uses existing if already running)
iman start

# Force restart
iman start --force

The command prints the port number on success (e.g., 3000).

Stop the Server

iman stop

Gracefully shuts down the running isman server. If the server doesn't stop within 5 seconds, it is force-terminated.

Check Current Port

iman port

Prints the port number of the currently running isman instance, or 0 if no instance is running.

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How It Works

iman acts as the bridge between you (or the VS Code extension) and the isman HTTP server:

You / VS Code Extension
        │
        ├── iman start  →  Launches isman process
        ├── iman port   →  Finds running isman port
        └── iman stop   →  Sends shutdown signal
                │
                ▼
        isman HTTP Server (background)

Startup Process

1. Check if an instance is already running (returns its port)
2. Find an available port starting from IMAN_START_PORT (default: 3000)
3. Spawn isman as a background process
4. Redirect logs to ~/.nova/isman/logs/isman.log
5. Wait for the server to become ready (up to 5 seconds)
6. Print the port number

Shutdown Process

1. Find the current server port
2. Send HTTP POST to /shutdown for graceful shutdown
3. Wait up to 5 seconds for the process to exit
4. Force-terminate if still running

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Environment Variables

Variable	Description	Default
NOVA_HOME	Nova home directory	Required
IMAN_START_PORT	Starting port to search from	3000

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Log File

Server logs are written to:

~/.nova/isman/logs/isman.log

Check this file when troubleshooting server startup issues.

tip

In most cases, you don't need to run iman commands directly. The Binean Nova VS Code Extension manages the server automatically — just click "Start Ingenium Management" in the sidebar.