Honest progress · Hugo Sibony

Plain counters for fast steps, and the tool’s own progress output (git --progress, curl -#) for slow ones, since it already knows totals and ETA. TTY only; piped output stays clean. Uses ok from marker output.

TOTAL=3 N=0    # keep TOTAL equal to the number of steps
step() { N=$((N + 1)); ok "[$N/$TOTAL] $1"; }

# single-line ticker for loops over many items; cleans up after itself
tick()    { [ -t 1 ] && printf "\r    %2d/%d %s\033[K" "$1" "$2" "$3" || true; }
tickend() { [ -t 1 ] && printf '\r\033[K' || true; }

# curl: progress bar on a TTY, silent when piped (stderr carries the bar)
if [ -t 2 ]; then CURL="curl -f#L"; else CURL="curl -fsSL"; fi