[BUG] console.status doesn't work properly with subprocess.run

[ShaiAvr]

• I've checked docs and closed issues for possible solutions.
• I can't find my issue in the FAQ.

Describe the bug

I am writing a script to run external programs with the subprocess module. I want to display a status message with a spinner while the program is running. However, using simple subprocess.run inside a status context causes the status line to be printed whenever the process prints something, which ruins the result. To illustrate it, consider a simple external program named foo that does some "work":

#!/bin/bash

for i in $(seq 1 10); do
    echo 'Working...'
    sleep 1
done
echo 'Done'

Now my script looks something like this:

import subprocess

from rich.console import Console

console = Console()

with console.status("[bold green]Running..."):
    subprocess.run(["./foo"])

When running this script, the status line remains on the console each time foo prints something, which makes an ugly result:

Screencast.from.2025-10-14.13-37-30.webm

Platform

Click to expand

I am running on Linux with the Wezterm terminal.

Results of rich.diagnose:

╭───────────────────────── <class 'rich.console.Console'> ─────────────────────────╮
│ A high level console interface.                                                  │
│                                                                                  │
│ ╭──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮ │
│ │ <console width=150 None>                                                     │ │
│ ╰──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯ │
│                                                                                  │
│     color_system = None                                                          │
│         encoding = 'utf-8'                                                       │
│             file = <_io.TextIOWrapper name='<stdout>' mode='w' encoding='utf-8'> │
│           height = 30                                                            │
│    is_alt_screen = False                                                         │
│ is_dumb_terminal = False                                                         │
│   is_interactive = False                                                         │
│       is_jupyter = False                                                         │
│      is_terminal = False                                                         │
│   legacy_windows = False                                                         │
│         no_color = False                                                         │
│          options = ConsoleOptions(                                               │
│                        size=ConsoleDimensions(width=150, height=30),             │
│                        legacy_windows=False,                                     │
│                        min_width=1,                                              │
│                        max_width=150,                                            │
│                        is_terminal=False,                                        │
│                        encoding='utf-8',                                         │
│                        max_height=30,                                            │
│                        justify=None,                                             │
│                        overflow=None,                                            │
│                        no_wrap=False,                                            │
│                        highlight=None,                                           │
│                        markup=None,                                              │
│                        height=None                                               │
│                    )                                                             │
│            quiet = False                                                         │
│           record = False                                                         │
│         safe_box = True                                                          │
│             size = ConsoleDimensions(width=150, height=30)                       │
│        soft_wrap = False                                                         │
│           stderr = False                                                         │
│            style = None                                                          │
│         tab_size = 8                                                             │
│            width = 150                                                           │
╰──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯
╭─── <class 'rich._windows.WindowsConsoleFeatures'> ────╮
│ Windows features available.                           │
│                                                       │
│ ╭───────────────────────────────────────────────────╮ │
│ │ WindowsConsoleFeatures(vt=False, truecolor=False) │ │
│ ╰───────────────────────────────────────────────────╯ │
│                                                       │
│ truecolor = False                                     │
│        vt = False                                     │
╰───────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯
╭────── Environment Variables ───────╮
│ {                                  │
│     'CLICOLOR': '1',               │
│     'COLORTERM': 'truecolor',      │
│     'COLUMNS': None,               │
│     'JPY_PARENT_PID': None,        │
│     'JUPYTER_COLUMNS': None,       │
│     'JUPYTER_LINES': None,         │
│     'LINES': None,                 │
│     'NO_COLOR': None,              │
│     'TERM_PROGRAM': 'WezTerm',     │
│     'TERM': 'xterm-256color',      │
│     'TTY_COMPATIBLE': None,        │
│     'TTY_INTERACTIVE': None,       │
│     'VSCODE_VERBOSE_LOGGING': None │
│ }                                  │
╰────────────────────────────────────╯
platform="Linux"

[github-actions[bot]]

We found the following entry in the FAQ which you may find helpful:

• How do I render console markup in RichHandler?

Feel free to close this issue if you found an answer in the FAQ. Otherwise, please give us a little time to review.

Rich was created by Will McGugan. Consider sponsoring Will's work on Rich.

This is an automated reply, generated by FAQtory

[willmcgugan]

Rich has no way of getting the output from your subprocess, and therefore can't perform the magic required to integrate it with the spinner.

If you want to do this, you will need to capture the output from your subprocess and print it in the main process.

[ShaiAvr]

But if I don't pass explicit handles to stdout and stderr of the process, it should use sys.stdout and sys.stderr of the script. So, what's the difference between me capturing the output and writing it to sys.stdout, or Python doing it for me?

[willmcgugan]

It won't write to sys.stdout / sys.stderr as those objects are defined the parent process, and a subprocess doesn't have access to its parent process's memory.

The subprocess will write directly to its stdout/stderr.

[ShaiAvr]

But the subprocess inherits its parent's stdout and stderr, no?
If I indeed have to capture the output and print it myself, then how should I do it? The subprocess is completely external and doesn't know anything about rich. Should I print the output directly to sys.stdout, or use console.print or console.out?

[willmcgugan]

But the subprocess inherits its parent's stdout and stderr, no?

Yes, but it doesn't inherit the Python objects, which is what Rich uses to capture prints.

You can use any Python interface for printing. See Python docs for how to capture subprocess output.