Logging & Console Output Style

Consistent, scannable console output helps contributors quickly understand build and utility script progress. This guide defines the canonical emoji/icon and wording conventions. Use these for Write-Host or future Write-KrLog helper calls.

Icon Map

Category	Emoji	Usage Examples
Info / Generic	ℹ️	General informational messages
Build / Compile	🏗️	Building solution / project
Restore / Fetch / Download	📦	Restoring packages, downloading tooling
Update / Sync	🔄	Syncing DLLs, updating analysis packages
Clean / Purge	🧹	Cleaning artifacts, coverage, docs
Test (start)	🧪	Starting test suites
Test (sub-step)	▶️	Per-framework test run indicator
Packaging / Archive	📦	Creating NuGet/package artifacts
Format	✨	Code formatting operations
Coverage (collect)	📊	Collecting or saving raw coverage XML
Coverage (report)	📈	Generating HTML / badges coverage reports
Documentation (aggregate)	📚	Generating all docs/help bundles
Documentation (PowerShell)	📖	PowerShell help generation
Documentation (C# API)	📘	C# XML → Markdown API docs
Install / Deploy	🚀	Deploying / installing module
External Tool Install	📥	Installing tools (xmldocmd, ReportGenerator)
Large File Generation	🧪	Creating synthetic test files
Copy / File Ops / Stage	📁	Copying/staging binaries, assets
Third-Party Notices	📄	Generating license / notice files
Manifest / Config	📝	Generating or updating config/manifest
Scan / Discovery	🔍	Scanning directories, locating files
Success / Final	✅	Successful completion summary
Warning	⚠️	Non-fatal issue / degraded path
Error / Failure	❌	Fatal error / abort condition
Removal / Deletion	🗑️	Deleting modules, temp, artifacts

Formatting Rules

1. Start each primary status line with the emoji then one space.
2. Use sentence case; prefer gerund verbs for ongoing work (“Building”, “Generating”).
3. Keep ellipses (...) only for clearly ongoing operations; omit otherwise.
4. One emoji per line; do not chain multiples.
5. Allow a blank line before a final ✅ success message if prior output is dense.
6. Leave streamed progress markers (e.g. #) untouched.
7. Do not substitute different but similar emojis; stay canonical.
8. For non-Unicode terminals, a future -NoEmoji or KESTRUN_NO_EMOJI suppression may be added.

Before / After Example

Before:

Write-Host 'Building solution...'
Write-Host 'Running tests for net9.0'
Write-Host 'Coverage (Cobertura) saved: X'

After:

Write-Host '🏗️ Building solution...'
Write-Host '🧪 Running tests for net9.0'
Write-Host '📊 Coverage (Cobertura) saved: X'

Suggested Helper (Future)

Centralize formatting and allow emoji suppression:

function Write-KrLog {
    param(
        [Parameter(Mandatory)][string]$Message,
        [ValidateSet('info','build','restore','update','clean','test','package','format','coverage','report','docs','docs-pwsh','docs-cs','install','tool','generate','copy','notice','manifest','scan','success','warn','error','remove')]
        [string]$Kind = 'info',
        [switch]$NoEmoji
    )
    $map = @{ info='ℹ️'; build='🏗️'; restore='📦'; update='🔄'; clean='🧹'; test='🧪'; package='📦'; format='✨'; coverage='📊'; report='📈'; docs='📚'; 'docs-pwsh'='📖'; 'docs-cs'='📘'; install='🚀'; tool='📥'; generate='🧪'; copy='📁'; notice='📄'; manifest='📝'; scan='🔍'; success='✅'; warn='⚠️'; error='❌'; remove='🗑️' }
    $useEmoji = -not ($NoEmoji -or $env:KESTRUN_NO_EMOJI)
    $icon = if ($useEmoji) { $map[$Kind] } else { '' }
    if ($icon) { Write-Host "$icon $Message" } else { Write-Host $Message }
}

Adoption optional; recommended for future consistency.

Migration Checklist

• Replace non-canonical or duplicate emojis
• Ensure gerund verb style for active operations
• Use ✅ for final success; ❌ for failures (plus throw)
• Leave streaming progress markers intact
• Avoid mixing packaging vs restore icons (both use 📦 intentionally)

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Last updated: 2026-01-26