Spectre.Console Example in C# — Live Panels, Progress Bars and Prompts (.NET 8)

A .NET 8 console application demonstrating how to build a rich terminal UI in C# with the Spectre.Console library. The app simulates an interactive data collection workflow with live panels, multi-task progress bars, and a selection prompt — all with coloured text and animated UI elements.

Features

  • Live panel — updates in-place through four stages: Connecting, Fetching Data, Processing, and Complete
  • Multi-task progress bar — three parallel tasks (Fetching User Data, Downloading Reports, Analyzing Logs) with percentage, spinner, and remaining-time columns
  • Selection prompt — asks whether to restart the workflow or exit
  • Continuous loop — the entire workflow repeats until the user selects “No”

Workflow

  1. Live panel cycles through four status messages with brief delays
  2. Progress bar advances three tasks to completion (each at a different increment rate)
  3. User is prompted to restart or exit

Requirements

NuGet Packages

Package Version
Spectre.Console 0.49.1
Spectre.Console.Cli 0.49.1

Build and Run

cd SpectreDemo
dotnet run

Project Structure

SpectreDemo/
├── Program.cs          # Full application — live panel, progress bar, selection prompt
├── SpectreDemo.csproj
└── SpectreDemo.sln

Spectre.Console APIs Used

API Used for
AnsiConsole.Live with Panel and UpdateTarget Updating a panel in place
AnsiConsole.Progress with AddTask and Increment Several progress bars advancing together
SelectionPrompt<string> with AddChoices The restart / exit prompt
Markup such as [green]...[/] Coloured and styled text

Spectre.Console.Cli is referenced in the project file but not used by Program.cs.

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