Add progress bars and spinners for long-running CLI operations by Copilot · Pull Request #149 · DevExpGbb/gh-devlake

Copilot · 2026-03-30T15:52:02Z

Any operation taking >30s (container startup, Azure Bicep deployment, DB migration, pipeline sync) gave no visual feedback beyond a static message. Users had no way to gauge progress or distinguish a slow operation from a hang.

New: `cmd/progress.go`

Zero-dependency terminal progress UI with three primitives:

progressBar — in-place [████████░░░░░░░░] 8/36 waiting for DevLake (1m20s elapsed) via \r
countdown(n, label) — deterministic per-second fill bar for fixed-duration sleeps
spinWhile(label, fn) — runs fn in a goroutine, shows a braille spinner (⠋⠙⠹⠸⠼⠴⠦⠧⠇⠏) until it returns

Constants progressLineWidth = 72 and progressBarWidth = 24 keep rendering consistent across all callers.

Applied to long-running operations

Location	Before	After
`waitForReady` / `waitForReadyAny` / `waitForMigration`	New line per poll attempt	Single in-place progress bar
`startLocalContainers` — MySQL init sleep	`time.Sleep(30s)`	`countdown(30, "MySQL initializing")`
`DeployBicep` in `deploy_azure.go`	Blocking call, no feedback	`spinWhile("Deploying Azure resources via Bicep", ...)`
Azure MySQL restart sleep	`time.Sleep(30s)`	`countdown(30, "waiting for MySQL")`
`triggerAndPoll` in `configure_projects.go`	New line every 10s with raw elapsed/status	In-place `[████░░░░] 3/8 tasks — TASK_RUNNING (45s elapsed)`

Example — spinner wrapping Bicep deployment

var deployment *azure.DeploymentOutput
err = spinWhile("Deploying Azure resources via Bicep (this takes several minutes)", func() error {
    var innerErr error
    deployment, innerErr = azure.DeployBicep(azureRG, templatePath, params)
    return innerErr
})

On failure, spinWhile clears the spinner line before returning so the caller's error message lands on a clean line.

Original prompt

Add "progress bar" capability in the UI to Containers spinning up and long deployment ones like Azure deployment. Basically anything in the flow where a user has to wait longer than 30 seconds for something should ideally have a progress bar

The user has attached the following file paths as relevant context:

.github/copilot-instructions.md

AGENTS.md

AGENTS.md

Created from VS Code.

- New cmd/progress.go: progressBar struct (in-place fill bar with \r), countdown() for deterministic sleeps, spinWhile() for indeterminate waits (braille spinner). Constants progressLineWidth/progressBarWidth ensure consistent rendering across all callers. - cmd/helpers.go: waitForReady, waitForReadyAny, waitForMigration now show an animated [████░░░░] progress bar instead of printing a new line per attempt. - cmd/deploy_local.go: 30s MySQL init sleep replaced with countdown bar. - cmd/deploy_azure.go: DeployBicep wrapped with spinWhile(); MySQL 30s sleep replaced with countdown(). - cmd/configure_projects.go: triggerAndPoll uses in-place \r updates with renderBar for task progress. Agent-Logs-Url: https://github.com/DevExpGbb/gh-devlake/sessions/5882daaa-5962-4400-851a-c131c3cb23f9 Co-authored-by: ewega <26189114+ewega@users.noreply.github.com>

Copilot

Pull request overview

This PR introduces a small, zero-dependency progress UI helper for the gh-devlake Cobra CLI and wires it into several long-running operations (container readiness polling, fixed sleeps, Azure Bicep deployment, and pipeline monitoring) to provide continuous terminal feedback instead of static messages.

Changes:

Added cmd/progress.go with an in-place progress bar, deterministic countdown bar, and a spinner wrapper for indeterminate waits.
Updated DevLake readiness + migration polling to render a single in-place progress bar instead of printing a new line per attempt.
Wrapped long sleeps and Azure deployment / pipeline monitoring with countdown/spinner/in-place progress output.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
`cmd/progress.go`	Adds progress bar, countdown, and spinner primitives for in-place terminal feedback.
`cmd/helpers.go`	Uses the new progress bar for `/ping` readiness and migration polling loops.
`cmd/deploy_local.go`	Replaces a fixed MySQL initialization sleep with a countdown bar during local deploy.
`cmd/deploy_azure.go`	Adds countdown for MySQL start wait and wraps Bicep deployment in a spinner.
`cmd/configure_projects.go`	Switches pipeline polling output to an in-place progress bar/status line.

Copilot's findings

Files reviewed: 5/5 changed files
Comments generated: 3

+const progressLineWidth = 72
+
+// progressBarWidth is the number of block characters in every progress bar.
+const progressBarWidth = 24
+
+// progressBar renders an in-place terminal progress bar using \r.
+// Create with newProgressBar, call update to redraw, and done to finish.
+type progressBar struct {
+	total int
+	width int
+	start time.Time
+}
+
+func newProgressBar(total int) *progressBar {
+	return &progressBar{total: total, width: progressBarWidth, start: time.Now()}
+}
+
+// renderBar returns a [████░░░░] string representing current/total progress.
+// Rounding is applied so early progress is visible even at low percentages.
+func renderBar(current, total, width int) string {
+	if total <= 0 {
+		return "[" + strings.Repeat("░", width) + "]"
+	}
+	// Use rounding division to avoid premature completion or invisible early progress.
+	filled := (width*current + total/2) / total
+	if filled > width {
+		filled = width
+	}
+	return "[" + strings.Repeat("█", filled) + strings.Repeat("░", width-filled) + "]"
+}
+
+// update redraws the progress bar at position current.
+// It uses \r to overwrite the current line in the terminal.
+func (p *progressBar) update(current int, label string) {
+	bar := renderBar(current, p.total, p.width)
+	elapsed := time.Since(p.start).Truncate(time.Second)
+	fmt.Printf("\r   %s %2d/%-2d  %s (%s elapsed)  ", bar, current, p.total, label, elapsed)
+}
+
+// clear erases the progress bar line and returns the cursor to column 0.
+func (p *progressBar) clear() {
+	fmt.Printf("\r%s\r", strings.Repeat(" ", progressLineWidth))
+}


+	var deployment *azure.DeploymentOutput
+	err = spinWhile("Deploying Azure resources via Bicep (this takes several minutes)", func() error {
+		var innerErr error
+		deployment, innerErr = azure.DeployBicep(azureRG, templatePath, params)
+		return innerErr
+	})


 		if err != nil {
-			elapsed := time.Since(deadline.Add(-timeout)).Truncate(time.Second)
-			fmt.Printf("   [%s] Could not check status...\n", elapsed)
+			fmt.Printf("\r   %-*s", progressLineWidth-3, fmt.Sprintf("⚠️  Could not check status (%s elapsed)", elapsed))
 		} else {
-			elapsed := time.Since(deadline.Add(-timeout)).Truncate(time.Second)
-			fmt.Printf("   [%s] Status: %s | Tasks: %d/%d\n", elapsed, p.Status, p.FinishedTasks, p.TotalTasks)
+			bar := renderBar(p.FinishedTasks, p.TotalTasks, progressBarWidth)
+			fmt.Printf("\r   %-*s", progressLineWidth-3, fmt.Sprintf("%s %d/%d tasks — %s (%s elapsed)", bar, p.FinishedTasks, p.TotalTasks, p.Status, elapsed))



ewega · 2026-05-15T16:10:40Z

@copilot Can you address the comments in this PR

…width spaces Replace strings.Repeat(" ", progressLineWidth) clears with \033[2K (ANSI erase entire line) in progress.go and configure_projects.go. This correctly erases lines of any length regardless of label width, fixing garbled output for long labels like the Azure Bicep spinner. Also removes the now-unneeded progressLineWidth constant and trailing-space padding from all update/spinner print calls. Co-authored-by: ewega <26189114+ewega@users.noreply.github.com>

Copilot · 2026-05-15T16:14:43Z

@copilot Can you address the comments in this PR

Addressed all three review comments in commit Fix progress/spinner rendering: use ANSI erase-line instead of fixed-width spaces.

The root cause was the same across all three: relying on overwriting with a fixed number of spaces (72) to "clear" a line, which fails for longer content.

Fix: replaced every strings.Repeat(" ", progressLineWidth) clear with the ANSI erase-entire-line sequence (\033[2K). This erases the full line regardless of what was printed there, so:

progressBar.clear() and spinWhile's completion/error clear now work for any label length (including the long Azure Bicep label).
clearLine() in configure_projects.go works correctly.
The status printf lines in configure_projects.go no longer need fixed-width %-*s padding — they now use \033[2K before each redraw instead.

The now-unneeded progressLineWidth = 72 constant was also removed.

Initial plan

249be20

Copilot AI assigned Copilot and ewega Mar 30, 2026

Copilot started work on behalf of ewega March 30, 2026 15:52 View session

Copilot AI changed the title ~~[WIP] Add progress bar for long-running UI processes~~ Add progress bars and spinners for long-running CLI operations Mar 30, 2026

Copilot finished work on behalf of ewega March 30, 2026 16:00

Copilot AI requested a review from ewega March 30, 2026 16:00

ewega marked this pull request as ready for review May 6, 2026 09:37

Copilot AI review requested due to automatic review settings May 6, 2026 09:37

Copilot started reviewing on behalf of ewega May 6, 2026 09:38 View session

Copilot AI reviewed May 6, 2026

View reviewed changes

Copilot started work on behalf of ewega May 15, 2026 16:10 View session

Copilot finished work on behalf of ewega May 15, 2026 16:15

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Add progress bars and spinners for long-running CLI operations#149

Add progress bars and spinners for long-running CLI operations#149
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Copilot AI commented Mar 30, 2026 •

edited

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ewega commented May 15, 2026

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Copilot AI commented Mar 30, 2026 • edited Loading Uh oh! There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.

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New: cmd/progress.go

Applied to long-running operations

Example — spinner wrapping Bicep deployment

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Pull request overview

Copilot's findings

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ewega commented May 15, 2026

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Copilot AI commented Mar 30, 2026 •

edited

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New: `cmd/progress.go`