Non-Clairvoyant Scheduling with Progress Bars

In non-clairvoyant scheduling, the goal is to minimize the total job completion time without prior knowledge of individual job processing times. This classical online optimization problem has recently gained attention through the framework of learning-augmented algorithms. We introduce a natural setting in which the scheduler receives continuous feedback in the form of progress bars—estimates of the fraction of each job completed over time. We design new algorithms for both adversarial and stochastic progress bars and prove strong competitive bounds. Our results in the adversarial case surprisingly induce improved guarantees for learning-augmented scheduling with job size predictions. We also introduce a general method for combining scheduling algorithms, yielding further insights in scheduling with predictions. Finally, we propose a stochastic model of progress bars as a more optimistic alternative to conventional worst-case models, and present an asymptotically optimal scheduling algorithm in this setting.