Turbopack keeps crashing? I made a CLI that auto-restarts it.

relkimm — Thu, 04 Dec 2025 07:20:48 +0000

I've been using Claude Code for my side projects lately.

It's great, but there's one problem. Claude keeps editing files automatically, which triggers rebuilds. And Turbopack doesn't handle that well.

The loop became my life:

Claude edits a file
Turbopack crashes
Ctrl+C → npm run dev
Claude edits another file
Crash again
Ctrl+C → npm run dev
...repeat all day

After a weekend of this, I built a CLI to handle it automatically.

next-zombie 🧟

npx next-zombie

It watches your dev server. When it crashes, it restarts. Automatically.

No more Ctrl+C. No more switching terminals. Just keep coding.

It also clears .next cache before each restart.

What It Looks Like

Starting up:

$ npx next-zombie
[next-zombie] Cleaning .next cache...
[next-zombie] Starting Next.js with auto-recovery...
[next-zombie] $ pnpm run dev

  ▲ Next.js 15.0.3 (Turbopack)
  - Local:        http://localhost:3000

 ✓ Ready in 1.2s

When crash happens:

 ⨯ [Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, open '.next/static/development/_buildManifest.js.tmp']

[next-zombie] Cache error detected!
[next-zombie] Restarting in 0.5s...
[next-zombie] Cleaning .next cache...
[next-zombie] Restarting... (#1)
[next-zombie] Starting Next.js with auto-recovery...
[next-zombie] $ pnpm run dev

  ▲ Next.js 15.0.3 (Turbopack)
  - Local:        http://localhost:3000

 ✓ Ready in 1.1s

On exit:

^C
[next-zombie] Session: 3 restarts, uptime 1h 42m

Before & After

Before:

Crash → Ctrl+C → npm run dev → Crash → Ctrl+C → npm run dev → ...

After:

Crash → [next-zombie restarts] → keep coding

Recovery time: ~700ms

How It Works

next-zombie
    │
    ├─► Start: pnpm run dev
    │
    ├─► Monitor stdout/stderr
    │       │
    │       ├─► Cache error? → Restart
    │       │
    │       └─► Crash? → Restart
    │
    └─► Ctrl+C → Show stats → Exit

Detected patterns:

_buildManifest.js.tmp ENOENT
.next cache errors
Any non-zero exit

Features

✅ Auto-restart — no more Ctrl+C loop
✅ Auto cache clearing — clears .next before restart
✅ PM detection — works with npm, pnpm, yarn, bun
✅ Session stats — see how many restarts happened

Install

Try it now:

npx next-zombie

Add to project:

npm install -D next-zombie

{
  "scripts": {
    "dev": "next-zombie"
  }
}

FAQ

Q: Does this fix Turbopack?

No. It's a workaround. When Turbopack crashes, next-zombie handles the restart.

Q: Production?

Dev only. Production builds don't have this issue.

Q: Why not disable Turbopack?

You can. But Turbopack is fast. I'd rather have speed + auto-recovery.

Forem: relkimm