Clear output from long running task

[kayleg]

Is it possible to clear the output from a long running task without needing to restart the task? Like the equivalent of in a standard mac terminal.

I leave a hot-reload server process running and sometimes I log some debug info but it gets really hard to find my latest output and I have to restart the task just to clear the output.

[stevearc]

This is possible with the jobstart strategy. I'm not sure how you want to trigger it, but you can pipe the raw terminal escape codes to the terminal handle. If you have the task object:

vim.api.nvim_chan_send(task.strategy.term_id, "\027[H\027[2J")

[kayle-at-built]

Thanks! This worked great.

Incase other people find this discussion, I implemented the trigger as an action for the task list and made all auto detected tasks use the jobstart strategy:

      require("overseer").setup({
        actions = {
          ["clear output"] = {
            desc = "Clear the output",
            run = function(task)
              vim.api.nvim_chan_send(task.strategy.term_id, "\027[H\027[2J")
            end,
          },
        },
        task_list = {
          bindings = {
            ['<C-c>'] = '<CMD>OverseerQuickAction clear output<CR>',
          }
        }
      })
      require('overseer').add_template_hook({}, function(task_defn)
        task_defn.strategy = { "jobstart", preserver_output = false, use_terminal = true }
      end
      )