Add more detailed generation status updates
Johnathan Lightfoot
The current pending/completed/failed style of status is useful, but not detailed enough for a good automation experience.
It would help if the API returned more specific status stages such as queued, generating outline, designing cards, generating images, exporting PPTX, completed, or failed.
This would let builders show better progress updates to users instead of only saying the deck is still processing.
Nik Payne (Gamma design)
Hey Johnathan Lightfoot, this is a great call. Pending/completed/failed is pretty opaque if you’re trying to build a solid automation UX, so I’ll pass this along to the team.
Quick question so we can make it actionable: are there specific stages you’d want to treat differently in your UI (like showing % progress, different copy, or enabling certain actions once “designing cards” is done), or is the main goal just more transparent messaging while it runs?
Johnathan Lightfoot
Nik Payne (Gamma design) if I had to pick, more transparent messaging while it runs is the bigger win.
Stages I'd treat differently in the UI:
- Queued — request accepted, waiting in line
- Generating outline — work has actually started
- Designing cards — the deck's taking shape, so this is where real progress feels meaningful
- Generating images — worth calling out separately since it explains longer runtimes
- Exporting — deck's done, file's being prepared
- Completed — download/handoff
- Failed — clear reason, ideally which stage it died at
The main goal is transparency, but the most actionable stage is probably exporting, once you hit that, the generation itself is basically done and you're just waiting on the file.