[FEATURE] Provide a way to create processes without starting them

[ryfow]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

I have 50ish processes and don't want to start all of them on my laptop right now.

Describe the solution you'd like

I'd like a way to define a process without starting it immediately, I don't care strongly about how usage looks.

If I was designing the system, I'd probably completely separate editing the internal manifest from starting things. apply and new process would alter the internal manifest but you'd need to start to get something running.

Describe alternatives you've considered

There are lots of options. To preserve backward compatibility, you could add something like a --define-only or --dont-start options.

You could also change the default behavior but add a --start option to do the define & start in one cli invocation.

Brandon said that there are some ideas he's thinking about in #183 but that seems pretty vague at this point. If that's a long ways off, exo could be useful for largish projects soon by splitting defining processes from running them.

[brandonbloom]

Thanks for filing this issue. I think the way we're most likely to address this is by adding a run-mode of some kind to the manifest. We're actively working on our own manifest format now, and so will make sure we think about this & will revisit once the new manifest support is available.

[ryfow]

It's worth looking at how docker-compose uses profiles. They provide a pretty nice way for users to cluster groups of services. https://docs.docker.com/compose/profiles/