NO_COLORAn increasing number of command-line software programs output text with ANSI color escape codes by default. While some developers and users obviously prefer seeing these colors, many users don’t. Unfortunately, every new piece of software seems to have a different way of disabling colored text output and some software has no way at all.
Accepting the futility of trying to reverse this trend, an informal standard is hereby proposed:
All command-line software which outputs text with ANSI color added should check for the presence of a
NO_COLORenvironment variable that, when present (regardless of its value), prevents the addition of ANSI color.
By adopting this standard, users that prefer to have plain, non-colored text output can set one environment variable in their shell to have it automatically affect all supported software.
This website will document which software has adopted this standard and when support was added. For software that has not or will not adopt this standard, an attempt will be made to document how to otherwise disable color.
To add software to this site, clone this site’s Git repository and submit a pull request.
NO_COLOR to disable default color outputSoftware using these libraries to output color inherently support disabling
color via NO_COLOR.
| Software | Description | Date/Version Supported |
|---|---|---|
| cli-color | NPM package for colors and formatting | 2019-10-09 / 2.0.0 |
| ColorDebug | Colorful command line output C/C++ macros | 2019-02-09 |
| colored | Rust crate for coloring terminal output | 2019-01-05 / 1.7.0 |
| colors-option | NPM package for colors and formatting based on chalk | 2021-03-02 / 1.0.0 |
| crayon | R package for colored terminal output | 2018-02-08 |
| Dye | Cross-platform terminal styling for Swift command-line interface | 2020-06-01 / 0.0.1 |
| Gapotchenko. FX.Console | Virtual terminal functionality, console traits, and useful primitives for .NET console apps | 2020-01-15 / 2020.1.15 |
| kleur | A Node.js library for formatting terminal text with ANSI colors | 2020-08-12 / 4.1.0 |
| GNU libtextstyle | Library for styling text output with CSS | 2019-08-13 / 0.21 |
| LogColor | Python library for coloring output in log messages | 2018-01-24 |
| MatthiWare. CommandLineParser | C# Command Line Parser Library | 2020-07-21 / 0.3.1 |
| paint | Ruby gem for terminal colors and effects | 2020-02-21 / 2.2.0 |
| pastel | Ruby gem for terminal output styling | 2020-07-04 / 0.8.0 |
| Pastel | Tiny .NET Core library for coloring console output | 2019-03-17 / 1.2.0 |
| Term::ANSIColor | Perl library for color output using ANSI escape sequences | 2020-01-17 / 5.01 |
| termcolor | Rust crate for cross platform terminal colors | 2020-01-11 / 1.1.0 |
| TextOutput | Go package for controlling text output, using VT100 terminal codes | 2019-11-18 / 1.9.1 |
NO_COLOR to disable default color output| Software | Description | Date/Version Supported |
|---|---|---|
| alogview | Android logcat Filter | 2018-10-31 |
| Ammonite | Scala Scripting | 2017-07-03 / 1.0.0 |
| Archey 4 | Python system information tool | 2020-09-26 / 4.8.0 |
| bat | A cat(1) clone with syntax highlighting and Git integration | 2020-10-02 / 0.16.0 |
| beets | Music library manager and MusicBrainz tagger | 2019-05-30 / 1.4.9 |
| bfs | Breadth-first version of the UNIX find command | 2019-05-06 / 1.4.1 |
| Bikeshed | Spec/Document Processor | 2018-07-27 |
| Bloop | Compilation/test server for Scala and Java | 2018-07-02 |
| Bullseye | A .NET library for running a target dependency graph | 2021-01-01 / 3.6.0 |
| Cake | A cross-platform build automation system with a C# DSL | 2021-03-06 / 1.1.0 |
| CakePHP | Full stack framework for PHP | 2019-12-30 / 4.0.1 |
| cdist | Usable configuration management | 2020-06-17 / 6.6.0 |
| chezmoi | Manage dotfiles across multiple machines, securely | 2020-05-06 / 1.8.1 |
| Cras | Cras: The Anti-Procrastination Tool | 2020-06-05 / 0.1.0 |
| Cronie | Cronie cron daemon project | 2021-03-19 |
| csv2db | CSV database loading tool | 2019-09-23 / 1.4.0 |
| DataLad | Data management and publication multitool | 2019-05-23 / 0.11.5 |
| deno | Secure TypeScript runtime | 2019-02-09 / 0.2.11 |
| elfinfo | Utility for displaying ELF information | 2020-01-17 / 1.0.1 |
| enum4linux-ng | Next generation enum4linux (Windows/Samba enumeration tool) | 2020-10-24 |
| Elixir | Dynamic, functional language | 2020-01-27 / 1.10.0 |
| fastlane | The easiest way to build and release mobile apps | 2020-11-19 / 2.168.0 |
| fd | Simple, fast, and user-friendly alternative to find |
2020-03-22 / 7.5.0 |
| ffind | Rust utility to find files and folders | 2018-03-24 |
| forest-arborist | Manage a loosely coupled forest of git or hg repositories | 2018-04-15 / 1.2.0 |
| fselect | Utility for finding files with SQL-like expressions | 2019-03-08 / 0.6.1 |
| gatsby-cli | GatsbyJS command line interface | 2019-08-05 |
| git-delete-merged-branches | Command-line tool to delete merged Git branches | 2020-06-29 / 1.2.0 |
| GitHub CLI | CLI for GitHub to manage pull requests, issues, and others | 2020-09-16 |
| git-subline-merge | Git merge driver for resolving conflicts | 2019-07-27 |
| gopass | Password store for teams | 2018-06-06 / 1.8.0 |
| Homebrew | Package manager for macOS | 2018-02-27 / 1.5.5 |
| htmltest | Tests generated HTML for issues | 2021-01-16 / 0.14.0 |
| hx | Futuristic take on hexdump, made in Rust | 2020-11-22 / 0.4.0 |
| KBSecret | Secret manager backed by Keybase and KBFS | 2018-04-13 / 1.4.0 |
| kitten | Tiny multi-server automation tool | 2018-06-06 / 0.2.14 |
| konch | Python shell/REPL configuration tool | 2019-01-19 / 4.0.0 |
| lc | Multi-dimensional, abbreviating ls/file lister in Nim | 2019-11-18 |
| lr | File list generator | 2018-01-29 |
| mblaze | Unix utilities to deal with Maildir | 2018-01-29 |
| meli | Terminal mail client in Rust | 2019-01-27 |
| Middleman | Ruby-based static site generator | 2019-02-18 |
| Modules | Dynamic modification of one’s environment | 2020-04-07 / 4.5.0 |
| mu | Maildir indexer/searcher | 2019-02-02 |
| Nette Tester | Testing library for PHP | 2020-08-03 / 2.3.3 |
| NGLess | Domain specific language for bioinformatics | 2018-10-29 |
| nnn | File manager | 2020-04-05 |
| npm | Package manager for JavaScript | 2018-03-24 / 5.8.0 |
| nvh | Node Version Helper | 2018-08-04 / 4.1.0 |
| o | Small, fast, and limited text editor | 2020-01-06 / 2.13.2 |
| picocli | Tiny Java command line interface | 2019-01-05 / 3.9.0 |
| pipewire | PipeWire multimedia server | 2021-03-13 / 0.3.24 |
| Planck | Stand-alone ClojureScript REPL | 2019-05-19 / 2.23.0 |
| procs | Process and system query and formatting | 2019-11-18 |
| pulumi | Programming-language-based IaC framework | 2018-06-04 / 0.14.3 |
| PyDERASN | Python ASN.1 DER library | 2018-02-14 |
| pytest | Python testing framework | 2020-07-28 / 6.0.0 |
| ripgrep | Line-oriented search tool | 2020-01-11 / 12.0.0 |
| rsmodules | Manage one’s environment by the use of modulefiles | 2018-10-09 |
| ShellSpec | A full-featured BDD unit testing framework for shell scripts | 2020-06-21/ 0.25.0 |
| smenu | Terminal selection filter | 2018-02-05 |
| Snow | Testing library for C | 2018-01-24 |
| Symfony | PHP framework and reusable components | 2019-11-21 / 4.4.0 |
| taoup | Fortune implementation | 2018-09-10 |
| tealdeer | TLDR pages client | 2020-09-03 / 1.4.0 |
| txtnish | Twtxt microblogging client | 2018-08-31 |
| twa | Tiny web auditor with strong opinions | 2018-11-15 / 1.1.0 |
| undertime | Timezone coordination tool | 2018-06-06 |
| whence | Print URL a file was downloaded from | 2020-06-20 / 0.9.2 |
| xh | Friendly and fast tool for sending HTTP requests | 2021-02-28 / 0.8.0 |
NO_COLOR| Software | Method |
|---|---|
| Ammonite | amm --color false (Docs) |
| Ansible | export ANSIBLE_NOCOLOR=true (Docs) |
| Arcanist | arc --no-ansi COMMAND (Docs) |
| Bundler | bundle COMMAND --no-color (Docs) |
| Clang | -fno-color-diagnostics (Docs) |
| Cocoapods | pod COMMAND --no-ansi (Docs) |
| FFmpeg | export AV_LOG_FORCE_NOCOLOR=true |
| fzf | fzf --color=bw or export FZF_DEFAULT_OPTS=--color=bw (Docs) |
| GCC | export GCC_COLORS= or -fno-diagnostics-color (Docs) |
| Git | git config --global color.ui false (Docs) |
| GStreamer | export GST_DEBUG_NO_COLOR=true or --gst-debug-no-color (Docs) |
| Lynx | lynx -nocolor (or show_color=never in .lynxrc) |
| Mercurial | hg --color=never (or Docs for .hgrc) |
| Midnight Commander | mc --nocolor |
| Packer | export PACKER_NO_COLOR=true |
| Radare | radare2 -e scr.color=0 |
| RSpec | export SPEC_OPTS=--no-color |
| Ruby | export RUBY_TESTOPTS=--color=never |
| Ruby IRB | echo "IRB.conf[:USE_COLORIZE] = false" >> ~/.irbrc (Docs) |
| The Silver Searcher | ag --nocolor (Rejected NO_COLOR Request) |
| Thor | export THOR_SHELL=Basic (Docs) |
| util-linux | touch /etc/terminal-colors.d/disable (Docs) |
| Vim | vim '+set t_Co=0' |
Why not just set $TERM to dumb or xterm without color support?
Or change all color definitions in the terminal to print black?
The terminal is capable of color and should be able to print color when
instructed.
NO_COLOR is a hint to the software running in the terminal to suppress
addition of color, not to the terminal to prevent any color from being
shown.
It is reasonable to configure certain software such as a text editor to use color or other ANSI attributes sparingly (such as the reverse attribute for a status bar) while still desiring that other software not add color unless configured to. It should be up to the user whether color is used, not the software author.
How should configuration files and command-line arguments be processed
in the presence of $NO_COLOR?
User-level configuration files and per-instance command-line arguments
should override $NO_COLOR.
A user should be able to export $NO_COLOR in their shell configuration
file as a default, but configure a specific program in its configuration
file to specifically enable color.
This also means that software that can add color but doesn’t by default
does not need to care about $NO_COLOR, because it will only ever be
adding color when instructed to do so (as it should be).