Making Sense of the upload Behavior of an ESP32C3 SuperMini

Development Platforms
5

Well the “Nologo ESP32C3 Super Mini” is included in Arduino-ESP32 3.0.1 but PlatformIO is still on 2.0.16.

So you would either have to fallback to a generic ESP32C3 with USB-CDC enabled, e.g. board = adafruit_qtpy_esp32c3, or,

use the Tasmota fork that has Arduino-ESP32 3.x, e.g.

[env:supermini_esp32c3]
platform = https://github.com/Jason2866/platform-espressif32.git#Arduino/IDF5
framework = arduino
; reasonably close
board = lolin_c3_mini

Certain serial monitor DTR/RTS settings may also affect being able to see the serial monitor output, given -DARDUINO_USB_CDC_ON_BOOT=1. See here for all possible combinations.