Terminal error watcher.
Wrap any dev server. The moment an error surfaces, package a debug-ready context in one keypress — no restart, no manual file hunting, no copy-pasting stack traces.
How it works
contextzip watch starts your process normally and buffers its output in the background. You see output exactly as you would without it — no restart, no interruption — while contextzip watches the stream for errors. When one is detected, a prompt appears directly beneath the error output.
~/projects/my-app
$ contextzip watch -- npm run dev
TypeError: Cannot read properties of undefined
at LoginForm (app/login/page.tsx:42)
contextzip · error detected
Press D to package debug context · S to skip
Press D and contextzip immediately writes .contextzip/output/debug-context.zip. Your server keeps running.
What's in the ZIP
| File | Contents |
|---|---|
| prompt.txt | Auto-generated: detected framework, error type, and a ready-to-paste task description |
| terminal-error.txt | The cleaned, noise-stripped error block and stack trace — ANSI colour codes stripped |
| source-files.zip | Source files referenced in the stack trace, paths preserved |
On Ctrl+C, if no errors were packaged during the session, contextzip offers one final prompt to capture the full session output — useful when something looked wrong but didn't match a known error pattern.
Supported frameworks
Python, Django, FastAPI, Node.js, Next.js, and React each have their own error-detection patterns and noise filters, so the extracted output stays clean and relevant across stacks — a Python traceback and a Next.js overlay are recognised and cleaned differently.
~/projects/api
$ contextzip watch -- python manage.py runserver
Detected: Django
Watching for Python/Django error patterns…
Notes & limitations
Works best with dev servers that don't read stdin interactively — npm run dev, manage.py runserver, and similar. PTY emulation isn't used, so on Windows colour passthrough may be limited — running in Windows Terminal or the VS Code integrated terminal gives the best results.