Real-time progress output during long-running test execution

[suin]

Background

Kubernetes E2E tests can take a long time due to resource creation, waiting for Ready state, retries, etc. Currently, kest is designed as a "post-hoc diagnostic" tool — reports and events are only output after test completion.

Problem

During test execution, the only thing visible to the user is Bun's test name [pass/fail] Xms. There is no real-time feedback at all while a test is running.

What's invisible during execution:

Situation	Current behavior
kubectl apply running	stdout/stderr are piped — nothing is displayed
retryUntil waiting for a resource to become Ready (e.g. 60s)	Process appears frozen
Errors during retry attempts	Silently swallowed, moves to next retry
cleanup/revert phase	Same silence

When a long-running test times out, there's no way to know where it was stuck in real-time. You only find out after completion by reading the report.

Expected behavior

Real-time visibility into what is happening during test execution. For example:

✓ Create Namespace kest-abc12
✓ Apply Deployment "my-app"
⟳ Assert Deployment "my-app" ... retrying (attempt 3/-, elapsed 4.2s)

Information that would be useful to see in real-time:

• Currently executing action (apply, assert, delete, etc.)
• Whether a retry is in progress, which attempt, and elapsed time
• Success/failure of each action

Technical context

The current Recorder accumulates events purely in-memory with no streaming output mechanism. The following events are already being recorded, so a real-time output layer on top of these could make this possible:

• ActionStart / ActionEnd
• RetryStart / RetryAttempt / RetryEnd
• RevertingsStart / RevertingsEnd

Considerations

• Should this be enabled by default, or opt-in via an environment variable (e.g. KEST_VERBOSE=1) or option?
• Output granularity: action level / command level / per-retry-attempt level
• Output format depending on environment: plain text for CI, spinner/colors for interactive terminals
• Coexistence with Bun's test runner output