Only show the tests currently running and the failed tests

[glehmann]

Motivation

With a large test suite, navigating the complete execution log just to find test failures can be difficult. It might be beneficial to have a view that distinctly shows the failed tests alongside the tests currently in progress.

Proposal

I'd like something like what ninja (or n2) does:

n2-progress.mp4

The system could display currently executing tests in the sequence they were initiated. For tests that take a while, printing their duration alongside their name might be helpful.

Once a test finishes, it would ideally vanish completely if it passes. If a test fails, however, its name and the specific execution details should be logged for review.

An overall progress bar could also provide a visual estimate of the total run's completion status.

Alternatives

No response

Additional context

No response

[sunshowers]

We already have a progress bar, but I agree that a view that put currently running tests front and center would be valuable.

Some thoughts:

• The t key, SIGUSR1, or SIGINFO/Ctrl-T on supported platforms (macOS, *BSD, illumos) shows currently running tests along with their outputs
• You can already only show failing tests with --status-level fail
• One of the reasons nextest has the current output format that it does is to provide a similar experience between what's shown in local terminals and CI
• Being able to use your terminal's search facility to look at which tests completed is really nice
• It's somewhat easy to overflow the terminal if you have 32 tests running in parallel, so we'd probably want to have a limit on the number of tests shown. IIRC systems like buck2 do this.

I wouldn't object to a key similar to t that toggles a persistent display of currently running tests, but I don't plan to work on this any time soon.

[glehmann]

Thanks for your feedback :)

I would want to run it that way most of the time, so the key toggle wouldn't really work for me.
Would it be OK to have a command-line option and/or a configuration to activate that mode? If yes, I'll try to implement it :)

[sunshowers]

A CLI option and corresponding environment variable yes, but not a config option (we only support per-repo configs at the moment and this wouldn't be appropriate for that).

You're definitely welcome to implement it!

[glehmann]

It's beginning to look good :)

nextest-running.mp4

I bumped into a bug in indicatif, and the code probably needs a lot of improvements.
But I'm satisfied enough with the result that I want to share it :)

[glehmann]

#2676

[sunshowers]

Released as part of cargo-nextest 0.9.109. Thanks @glehmann!