---
id: gravity
version: "1.2.3"
license: MIT
license_treatment: permissive
maintenance: active
---

# gravity — Command-line utilities to assist in managing Galaxy servers

License: permissive · Maintenance: active · Downloads: 108.1K/mo

## What it is and what it does

Gravity is a process manager for Galaxy servers that orchestrates multiple disparate services—web application servers (gunicorn), asynchronous task workers (celery), file upload handlers (tusd), and standalone Galaxy processes—through a unified command-line interface. It provides two main entry points: `galaxyctl` for managing service lifecycle (start, stop, log retrieval) and `galaxy` for running a Galaxy server in the foreground with live log output.

The package abstracts away the complexity of configuring and coordinating these services, supporting both supervisor and systemd as underlying process managers. It reads Galaxy configuration from YAML files, generates appropriate service definitions, and handles process supervision. Gravity is a dependency of Galaxy since version 22.01, though it can be installed independently for use with Galaxy source checkouts or custom deployments.

Use it for:

- Start and stop all Galaxy services together using `galaxyctl` rather than managing gunicorn, celery, and tusd individually.
- Run Galaxy in the foreground during development with `galaxy` to see all service logs in real time until interrupted.
- Configure Galaxy services declaratively via YAML and have Gravity generate supervisor or systemd configurations automatically.
- Manage Galaxy server processes on POSIX systems where supervisor or systemd is available as the underlying process manager.
- Deploy Galaxy in production with systemd integration, including memory controls and journald log namespace configuration.

## Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts above — verify before relying.

Gravity manages multiple Galaxy server processes (gunicorn, celery, tusd, and others) through a unified CLI, providing start/stop/logging control via the `galaxyctl` command and a foreground runner via the `galaxy` command.

Yes. Gravity is actively maintained, has no known vulnerabilities, carries a permissive MIT license, and solves a real operational problem for Galaxy deployments. Install it if you are running a Galaxy server or managing Galaxy from source; it is already a dependency of Galaxy 22.01+. Low install friction and broad Python version support (3.8–3.14) make adoption straightforward.

## Install

pip install gravity
uv add gravity
poetry add gravity

## Installing gravity

Before you install: Low install friction; pure Python wheel with no compiled dependencies. Active maintenance with recent releases; last commit 2026-08-13. Nine runtime dependencies (Click, supervisor, pyyaml, packaging, pydantic, pydantic-settings, jsonref, requests, requests-unixsocket) are all standard ecosystem packages.

License in practice: MIT license (permissive) imposes no significant restrictions on use, modification, or distribution in proprietary or open-source contexts.

Quickstart:

$ pip install gravity
$ . ./.venv/bin/activate
$ galaxyctl --help
$ galaxy

Requires Python 3.8 or later. Intended for Galaxy server deployments; most useful when Galaxy is already installed or when managing a Galaxy source checkout.

Verify before relying:

- Whether gravity can be used standalone outside a Galaxy deployment context, or if it requires Galaxy configuration files to function.
- Performance characteristics when managing large numbers of concurrent processes or in high-availability Galaxy clusters.

## Package facts

- License: MIT (permissive)
- Python support: supports_current
- Install friction: low
- Maintenance: active
- Downloads: 108.1K/month (top 15,000 on PyPI)
- Known vulnerabilities: none known

## Tags

galaxy process manager, galaxy server management, gunicorn celery supervisor, galaxy process control, galaxy service orchestration, galaxy startup management, galaxy foreground runner, galaxy-ecosystem, process-orchestration, devops

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