PowerShell / PowerShell/DSC

Progress output specific for visualization tools

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Issue-Enhancement Needs Triage
Dominant language
Rust
Stars
523
Forks
75
Avg merge
3d 16h
Merged PRs (30d)
24

Description

Summary of the new feature / enhancement

To aid use of DSC configurations for non-technical users, it would make sense to build a GUI tool that shows the configuration graphically and also shows progress and status as it is processed.

Proposed technical implementation details (optional)

dsc engine can emit additional progress (or perhaps other type) of JSON to helps visualization tools represent the configuration and progress:

  • The execution order is currently a debug trace, but it could be emitted as a progress type object
  • It may help with visualization by emitting some context of if the resource affects the system, application, or user (profile), for example. We can't have this as something that's part of a resource itself since a resource could affect all 3 but depending on use during runtime only the scope is defined
  • It may be useful to have the concept of impact level defined at runtime so that a visualization tool can prompt the user to continue if the operation can be destructive, for example

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by examining the dsc engine's existing debug trace for execution order and its current JSON output. Define what progress events, resource scope, and runtime impact information visualization tools need, then verify that the engine emits enough information for a tool to show configuration progress and identify potentially destructive operations.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
rust
Domain
tooling
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
25/100

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