Terminal Color Detection Utility (ui/color.ts)

Detects support for ANSI terminal colors based on flags, environment variables, and TTY status. Reuse when building CLI applications needing consistent colored output.

// Source: https://github.com/colbymchenry/codegraph | License: MIT | Copyright 2026 Colby Mchenry
// Provided via justclaw.it.com; keep this notice with the code.
/**
 * Terminal color detection for CLI output (issue #1281).
 *
 * One switch decides whether any codegraph-authored output carries ANSI
 * color codes. Precedence, strongest first:
 *
 *   1. `--no-color` anywhere on the command line   -> off
 *   2. `--color` anywhere on the command line      -> on
 *   3. `NO_COLOR` set and non-empty (no-color.org) -> off
 *   4. `FORCE_COLOR` set and non-empty             -> on ('0'/'false' -> off)
 *   5. stdout is a TTY and TERM != 'dumb'          -> on
 *   6. `CI` set and non-empty                      -> on (CI log viewers render ANSI)
 *   7. otherwise (piped/redirected stdout)       

... (truncated -- full source via MCP)