Skip to content

Show progress when copying to Nix store (avoid appearing stuck) #2450

@schickling

Description

@schickling

Problem

When running devenv tasks run, the TUI can appear "stuck" for minutes with no visible progress. This typically happens when Nix is copying derivations to the store — an operation that can take a long time but provides no feedback to the user.

The progress TUI introduced in v1.8 significantly improved visibility into builds, downloads, and evaluations. However, store copy operations still appear as silent gaps where nothing seems to be happening.

Proposal

  1. Show store copy progress in the TUI — Surface Nix store copy activity (e.g. "Copying X to store…") so users understand what's happening during otherwise silent periods.

  2. Warn about excessive copies — If a large number of paths are being copied to the store (suggesting something may be misconfigured or inefficient), show a warning or summary. This would help users identify and fix unnecessarily large closures.

Context

Metadata

Metadata

Assignees

Labels

No labels
No labels

Type

No type

Projects

No projects

Milestone

No milestone

Relationships

None yet

Development

No branches or pull requests

Issue actions