presist signals fired via gp sync{await, done} so they survive workspace restarts

[nisarhassan12]

I was recently Gitpodifying https://github.com/niklasvh/html2canvas and below is how my config looked like:

tasks:
  - name: Build
    init: npm install && npm run build && gp sync-done boot

  - name: Website
    before: cd www/
    init: npm install
    command: gp sync-await boot && npm start
    openMode: split-right

ports:
  - port: 8000
    onOpen: open-preview

The same config worked without the pre-builds while with the pre-builds it seemed to be stuck as if the npm start thing did not work. The behaviour was kind of odd and I had no idea What I was doing wrong.

Screenshots

Without Pre-build

With Pre-build

Thanks to @svenefftinge who pointed out:

the init tasks are not executed during startup of a prebuilt workspace. Therefore the gp sync-done boot command is never executed and as a consequence the other terminal is waiting forever.

moving the gp sync-done boot to the command section instead of init made it work as expected.

As a user looking at https://www.gitpod.io/docs/config-start-tasks/ I was expecting gp sync-done boot to work in the init phase. Sven proposed:

Maybe we should persist signals fired on disk so they survive workspace restarts.

I agree with him as the current behaviour unless we clearly document it is alienating.

Front conversations

[stale]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[axonasif]

BTW, this is still an issue.