#Watching it work

Output streams into the Shell line by line as a command runs, so you see exactly what is happening the moment it happens.

#Overview

When Arachne's Shell runs a command, you do not wait for a finished result and hope it went well. The output streams back to you live, one line at a time, exactly as the command produces it. You watch the work unfold in real time — the same way you would if you were sitting at the command line yourself.

This matters because watching is how you stay in control. A live stream tells you whether a build is progressing or stalling, whether a test is passing or failing, and whether a long job is on track long before it ends. You catch problems early, you understand what actually happened rather than guessing from a summary, and you always have the full picture in front of you.

#What you can do

• See output as it happens. Every line a command prints appears in the Shell the moment it is produced — no waiting for the command to finish first.
• Follow long jobs in real time. Builds, tests, installs, and other multi-step work reveal their progress line by line so you can see momentum, not just an end state.
• Read the real output. What you see is the genuine output of the command — exactly what the command itself produced, in order.
• Confirm what truly happened. The stream is your record of the actual run, so you can tell success from failure on your own terms rather than relying on a one-word verdict.
• Stay watching across time. If you step away or a job runs long, you can return and re-attach to a still-running session to watch its live output again, and a durable receipt preserves what already streamed.
• Stop the instant you see trouble. If the stream shows a command going wrong, you can stop it immediately, regardless of the permission level in force.

#How to use it

1. Run a command in a session. Type a request or an ordinary command in the Shell. As soon as it starts, output begins streaming back to you.
2. Read the stream top to bottom. Lines appear in the order the command produces them. Read down the stream to follow the command's progress from start to finish.
3. Watch for the signals that matter. Progress lines tell you the job is moving. A pause in output may mean the command is doing heavy work, waiting on input, or held for your approval at a lower permission level. Error or failure lines tell you something went wrong and where.
4. Act on what you see. If the output shows a problem, stop the running command — stopping always works immediately. If a command is held for your permission, the stream is where you will see that it is waiting.
5. Keep watching long jobs, or let them run. You can stay and watch a long command to the end, or let it continue in the background and be told when it finishes. Either way, the live output is there when you look.
6. Re-attach if you left. If you navigated away while a session was still running, reconnect to it to pick the live stream back up. The durable receipt holds everything that streamed while you were gone.

#Examples

Run the test suite and let me watch it.

You see each test reported line by line as it runs — names scrolling past, passes and failures appearing in order — so you know exactly which tests passed and which did not, the moment each one completes.

Build the project.

You watch the build stream its progress: steps starting and completing, warnings appearing as they occur, and the final lines confirming whether the build succeeded — all in real time rather than as a single result at the end.

Install the dependencies for this project.

The install streams its progress to you as it goes, package after package, so you can see it working steadily and spot immediately if anything stalls or errors out partway through.

#Tips

• Trust the stream over your expectations. If what you see does not match what you expected, the live output is the truth of the run — read it rather than assuming the command did what you intended.
• Watch the first run of anything new. Staying with the stream the first time you run a command tells you what its normal output looks like, so deviations stand out later.
• A quiet stream is not always a stuck one. A pause can mean heavy work, a wait for input, or an action held for your approval at a lower permission level. Check the permission level before assuming a command has frozen.
• Use the receipt to look back. When the stream scrolls past faster than you can read, the session's durable receipt and its context let you review exactly what ran after the fact.

#Related

• What the Shell is
• Running in the background
• Re-attaching to a session
• Durable receipts
• How Nourva checks its work