v4 watch mode logging may differ from v3, docs

[jakebailey]

Split from #1902 (comment).

The docs for webpack 5 list that the info-verbosity flag controls lifecycle logging (used by external tools to track webpack process). The critical one "verbose" to log incremental build start/ends. #1902 was fixed by adding these lifecycle logs back in #1903.

https://webpack.js.org/configuration/watch/#info-verbosity

I'm uncertain if this means the code should be modified to bring back info-verbosity (which appears to have been removed), or if the docs need to be updated to reflect the current state, or some combination of both where lifecycle logging gets a new flag and the docs are updated for the webpack 5 release.

[jakebailey]

#1902 (comment)

Yep, rely on our output is not safe, we can change our output - using other words/colors/etc

This language has been stable for years, and is used pretty frequently.

• VSCode integration with webpack in watch mode TypeStrong/ts-loader#660 (comment)
• https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=eamodio.tsl-problem-matcher

Colors aren't a problem; the way those work is by setting an escape sequence to tell the terminal to use a color, then writing the message, then repeating. Anyone reading the output will still be able to match the text.

[jakebailey]

If you want an example use, https://github.com/microsoft/pyright is the public repo that does this. It includes a watch task in VS Code to run the pyright VS Code extension, which builds the multiple entrypoints, waits for startup, and responds to edits. My intention is to update it to webpack-cli 4 once there's a release with the logging; it works alright with webpack-cli 3 for now (but clearly mixing versions isn't a great idea, it just was impossible not to do because the last v4 release had been so long ago, and my testing of the RCs is what led to opening #1902).

[jakebailey]

I used the bug template, which was likely a mistake as it added the label; feel free to remove it.

[jakebailey]

Now that everything is released, I've tested and confirmed that in the current state (with #1903), the watch mode works as expected. The status is always printed in watch mode (versus being controlled by a flag), but is functional, so I'm able to bump to webpack-cli v4 safely. Thanks for sneaking that in before the release.