fix(dev): show loading screen in initial startup

[danielroe]

🔗 Linked issue

📚 Description

since #1105 and nuxt/cli v3.30, we haven't shown the loading screen on initial nuxt dev startup, only on reload. this was an unintentional regression of dropping the proxy (which showed the loading screen) 🙈

[pkg-pr-new]

• nuxt-cli-playground

  npm i https://pkg.pr.new/create-nuxt@1421
  

  npm i https://pkg.pr.new/nuxi@1421
  

  npm i https://pkg.pr.new/@nuxt/cli@1421
  

commit: ffe0a9e

[coderabbitai]

No actionable comments were generated in the recent review. 🎉

ℹ️ Recent review info

⚙️ Run configuration

Configuration used: Organization UI

Review profile: CHILL

Plan: Pro Plus

Run ID: 67d02cab-072d-473b-99a2-f40f7930c05f

📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between ced4fb6 and ffe0a9e.

📒 Files selected for processing (1)

• packages/nuxt-cli/test/e2e/dev.spec.ts

🚧 Files skipped from review as they are similar to previous changes (1)

• packages/nuxt-cli/test/e2e/dev.spec.ts

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📝 Walkthrough

Walkthrough

NuxtDevServer no longer waits for the initial ready event before processing requests. It returns the loading screen when no handler is available and dispatches requests to an active handler otherwise. An end-to-end test verifies the pending response, refresh metadata, loading content, and cleanup after delayed initialization.

Estimated code review effort: 3 (Moderate) | ~20 minutes

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 5

✅ Passed checks (5 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Title check	✅ Passed	The title clearly states that the change fixes the loading screen during initial development-server startup.
Description check	✅ Passed	The description explains the startup loading-screen regression and directly matches the changeset and objectives.
Docstring Coverage	✅ Passed	No functions found in the changed files to evaluate docstring coverage. Skipping docstring coverage check.
Linked Issues check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.
Out of Scope Changes check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.

✨ Finishing Touches

📝 Generate docstrings

• Create stacked PR
• Commit on current branch

🧪 Generate unit tests (beta)

• Create PR with unit tests
• Commit unit tests in branch fix/show-loading

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[coderabbitai]

Actionable comments posted: 1

🤖 Prompt for all review comments with AI agents

Verify each finding against current code. Fix only still-valid issues, skip the
rest with a brief reason, keep changes minimal, and validate.

Inline comments:
In `@packages/nuxt-cli/test/e2e/dev.spec.ts`:
- Around line 43-52: Update the polling loop in the e2e setup around initPromise
so it stops when initialization rejects or a bounded startup deadline expires.
Race or otherwise observe initPromise while retrying fetch, preserve successful
listener detection, and throw the initialization error or a timeout error so the
cleanup path still executes.

🪄 Autofix (Beta)

Fix all unresolved CodeRabbit comments on this PR:

• Push a commit to this branch (recommended)
• Create a new PR with the fixes

---

ℹ️ Review info

⚙️ Run configuration

Configuration used: Organization UI

Review profile: CHILL

Plan: Pro Plus

Run ID: 33f38973-9b29-4376-813e-a7cab5018aed

📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 11ddd7a and ced4fb6.

📒 Files selected for processing (2)

• packages/nuxt-cli/src/dev/utils.ts
• packages/nuxt-cli/test/e2e/dev.spec.ts

[codspeed-hq]

Merging this PR will not alter performance

✅ 2 untouched benchmarks

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_{Comparing fix/show-loading (ffe0a9e) with main (11ddd7a)}