For this purpose I would have a service user called "leftpad-srv" under which my leftpad.io server runs.
When I login, I am "root".
When I want to say, change leftpadding from spaces to tabs, I'd call `leftpad-io-ctl set-padding \t` which would use a socket to communicate with the leftpad.io server.
For this purpose it would be very important that leftpad-io-ctl and the leftpad-io server are the same version, otherwise the -ctl might support setting a rightpad even though the server hasn't implemented this yet because they have two different versions.
A global install is necessary for many deployments.
(This is hypothetical but many apps have special ctl-tools to control or monitor the running application and it can be useful to, for example, have moderators in your app that can access the console with limited permissions)