How to Work with Processes and PIDs in Go

File Io

2026-04-17T12:05:42+00:00

Start processes with exec.Command, access the PID via cmd.Process.Pid, and manage them using os.Process methods like Wait and Signal.

Use the os/exec package to start processes and the os package to manage them by PID. Create a process with exec.Command, start it to get a *os.Process containing the PID, and use Wait() to block until completion or Signal() to send signals.

package main

import (
	"os/exec"
	"fmt"
	"os"
)

func main() {
	cmd := exec.Command("sleep", "10")
	if err := cmd.Start(); err != nil {
		panic(err)
	}
	fmt.Println("PID:", cmd.Process.Pid)
	cmd.Process.Signal(os.Interrupt)
	cmd.Wait()
}