run_process: Document pitfalls re/ Ctrl+C and not creating a new process group

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#3,300 9 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

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Assessment

Difficulty
2/5
Estimated time
1-3 hours
Newbie friendliness
68/100
Issue type
Documentation
Clarity
Mostly clear
Activity status
Quiet
Tech stack
python
Domain
documentation

Research direction

Start by reading the existing process-group documentation for run_process and issue #3273. Document the foreground/background process-group and Ctrl+C pitfalls, including how a non-shell invocation can lose signal control and the relevance of start_new_session; done when these cases are clearly explained.

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Description

docs

I know the docs already mention process groups;

However, I had no idea about the existence of background and foreground groups, and didn't know that a grandchild process could take control of Ctrl+C handling if it becomes a foreground process and pushes my process into background (?). So I spent quite a lot of time trying to figure out why Ctrl+C wasn't reaching my process at all.

#3273 is relevant, but even for non-shell invocations of run_process it's still possible to lose control over Ctrl+C unless you use smth like "start_new_session".

Dominant language
Python
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Merged PRs (30d)
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