Terminal Stylist Analysis: Console Output Patterns in gh-aw #8856

2026-01-04T08:43:39Z

github-actions[bot]
bot Jan 4, 2026

Executive Summary

This analysis examines the console output architecture in the gh-aw codebase, focusing on the adoption of Charmbracelet ecosystem libraries (Lipgloss, Huh, Bubbles) for terminal UI. The codebase demonstrates excellent adoption of modern terminal styling practices with a well-architected console package.

Key Findings

✅ Strengths:

871 instances of proper console formatting usage across CLI package
Comprehensive pkg/console package (~5,888 LOC, 20 files) with Lipgloss integration
Adaptive color system supporting both light and dark terminal themes
Proper TTY detection throughout (pkg/tty package)
Interactive forms with Huh for workflow creation
Bubble Tea components for lists and spinners

⚠️ Opportunities:

97 instances of raw fmt.Fprintf(os.Stderr, ...) without console formatting
Minimal hardcoded ANSI escape sequences (13 instances, mostly in logger)
No lipgloss tree package usage yet
Limited table usage (only in console package core, not CLI)

Architecture Overview

Console Package Structure

The pkg/console package provides a comprehensive styling system:

pkg/console/
├── console.go       - Core formatting, error display, tables
├── format.go        - Utility formatters (file size)
├── render.go        - Struct-to-console rendering with reflection
├── list.go          - Interactive lists with Bubble Tea
├── layout.go        - Layout composition helpers
├── banner.go        - ASCII banner rendering
├── spinner.go       - Progress spinners with TTY detection
└── progress.go      - Progress bar components

Styles Package

The pkg/styles/theme.go provides centralized color and style definitions:

// Adaptive colors for light/dark terminals
var ColorError = lipgloss.AdaptiveColor{
    Light: "#D73737", // Darker red for light backgrounds
    Dark:  "#FF5555", // Dracula bright red for dark backgrounds
}

// Pre-configured styles
var Error = lipgloss.NewStyle().Bold(true).Foreground(ColorError)
var Success = lipgloss.NewStyle().Bold(true).Foreground(ColorSuccess)

Design Philosophy:

Light mode: Darker, saturated colors for visibility
Dark mode: Dracula-inspired vibrant colors
11 semantic colors: Error, Warning, Success, Info, Purple, Yellow, Comment, Foreground, Background, Border, TableAltRow

Current Lipgloss Usage

✅ Excellent Implementations

1. Interactive Forms with Huh (pkg/cli/interactive.go)

The interactive workflow builder demonstrates best-in-class Huh usage:

form := huh.NewForm(
    huh.NewGroup(
        huh.NewSelect[string]().
            Title("When should this workflow run?").
            Description("Choose the GitHub event that triggers this workflow").
            Options(triggerOptions...).
            Height(8).
            Value(&b.Trigger),
    ).
        Title("Basic Configuration").
        Description("Let's start with the fundamentals of your workflow"),
).WithAccessible(isAccessibleMode())

Highlights:

✅ Organized into logical groups (Basic Configuration, Capabilities, Network & Security, Instructions)
✅ Accessibility mode detection: isAccessibleMode() checks ACCESSIBLE, TERM=dumb, NO_COLOR
✅ Multiple field types: Select, MultiSelect, Input, Text, Confirm
✅ Input validation: ValidateWorkflowName, ValidateWorkflowIntent
✅ Graceful fallback to text input in CI/automated environments
✅ Custom suggestions for common workflow names

Accessibility Implementation:

func isAccessibleMode() bool {
    return os.Getenv("ACCESSIBLE") != "" ||
        os.Getenv("TERM") == "dumb" ||
        os.Getenv("NO_COLOR") != ""
}

2. Interactive Lists with Bubbles (pkg/console/list.go)

Custom Bubble Tea list implementation with styled rendering:

type itemDelegate struct{}

func (d itemDelegate) Render(w io.Writer, m list.Model, index int, listItem list.Item) {
    selectedStyle := lipgloss.NewStyle().
        Foreground(styles.ColorSuccess).
        Bold(true)
    
    titleStyle := lipgloss.NewStyle().
        Foreground(styles.ColorForeground)
    
    isSelected := index == m.Index()
    
    if isSelected {
        str.WriteString(selectedStyle.Render("> " + i.title))
    } else {
        str.WriteString(titleStyle.Render("  " + i.title))
    }
}

Features:

✅ Custom delegate with adaptive color styling
✅ TTY detection with fallback to numbered text list
✅ Filtering and search enabled
✅ Keyboard navigation (arrow keys, enter, esc, q)
✅ Alt-screen mode for clean terminal restoration

3. Layout Composition Helpers (pkg/console/layout.go)

Reusable layout patterns for consistent output:

// Title box with double border
title := console.LayoutTitleBox("Trial Execution Plan", 60)

// Info section with left border
info := console.LayoutInfoSection("Workflow", "test-workflow")

// Emphasis box with thick border
warning := console.LayoutEmphasisBox("⚠️ WARNING: Large workflow", styles.ColorWarning)

// Compose vertically
output := console.LayoutJoinVertical(title, "", info1, info2, "", warning)

Benefits:

✅ Automatic TTY detection (styled vs. plain text)
✅ Consistent spacing and alignment
✅ Reusable across CLI commands
✅ Simpler API than raw Lipgloss composition

4. Adaptive Tables (pkg/console/console.go)

Table rendering with lipgloss/table integration:

t := table.New().
    Headers(config.Headers...).
    Rows(allRows...).
    Border(styles.NormalBorder).
    BorderStyle(styles.TableBorder).
    StyleFunc(styleFunc)

Features:

✅ Dynamic column width calculation
✅ Zebra striping with ColorTableAltRow
✅ Custom header styling
✅ Total row highlighting
✅ Automatic TTY detection

Usage:

pkg/cli/mcp_registry_list.go - MCP server registry listing
pkg/cli/deps_outdated.go - Dependency version reporting
pkg/cli/mcp_list.go - Workflow MCP configuration display

5. Progress Spinners (pkg/console/spinner.go)

Minimal dot animation spinner with comprehensive TTY/accessibility support:

spinner := console.NewSpinner("Compiling your workflow...")
spinner.Start()
// Long operation
spinner.StopWithMessage("✓ Workflow compiled successfully!")

Features:

✅ MiniDot style (⣾ ⣽ ⣻ ⢿ ⡿ ⣟ ⣯ ⣷)
✅ Automatic TTY detection
✅ Respects ACCESSIBLE environment variable
✅ Thread-safe updates with mutex
✅ Clean line clearing with ANSI escape sequences
✅ Adaptive color styling

Accessibility:

enabled := tty.IsStderrTerminal() && os.Getenv("ACCESSIBLE") == ""

6. Error Formatting (pkg/console/console.go)

Rust-like compiler error formatting:

err := CompilerError{
    Position: ErrorPosition{File: "workflow.md", Line: 10, Column: 5},
    Type:     "error",
    Message:  "Invalid YAML syntax",
    Context:  []string{"engine: copilot", "tools:", "  github:"},
    Hint:     "Add required 'allowed' field to github tool configuration",
}
fmt.Fprintln(os.Stderr, console.FormatError(err))

Output (TTY mode):

workflow.md:10:5: error: Invalid YAML syntax
  8 | engine: copilot
  9 | tools:
 10 |   github:
    |   ^^^^^^ Invalid configuration
 11 |
hint: Add required 'allowed' field to github tool configuration

Features:

✅ IDE-parseable format (file:line:column:)
✅ Relative path display
✅ Source context with line numbers
✅ Syntax highlighting
✅ Optional hints for fixing
✅ Color-coded by severity (error/warning/info)

Improvement Opportunities

1. Raw fmt.Fprintf Usage (97 Instances)

Files using raw fmt.Fprintf(os.Stderr, ...) without console formatting:

High-Priority Files (User-Facing Output)

pkg/cli/trial_command.go (7 instances)

// ❌ Current
fmt.Fprintf(os.Stderr, "     a. Execute %s\n", workflowName)

// ✅ Suggested
fmt.Fprintln(os.Stderr, console.FormatInfoMessage(fmt.Sprintf("     a. Execute %s", workflowName)))

pkg/cli/mcp_list_tools.go (4 instances)

// ❌ Current
fmt.Fprintf(os.Stderr, "Found MCP server '%s' in %d workflow(s): %s\n",
    mcpServerName, count, strings.Join(workflowNames, ", "))

// ✅ Suggested
fmt.Fprintln(os.Stderr, console.FormatInfoMessage(
    fmt.Sprintf("Found MCP server '%s' in %d workflow(s): %s",
        mcpServerName, count, strings.Join(workflowNames, ", "))))

pkg/cli/add_command.go (6 instances - examples/help text)

// ❌ Current
fmt.Fprintf(os.Stderr, "  %s add %s\n", string(constants.CLIExtensionPrefix), exampleSpec)

// ✅ Suggested (for command examples)
fmt.Fprintln(os.Stderr, console.FormatCommandMessage(
    fmt.Sprintf("%s add %s", string(constants.CLIExtensionPrefix), exampleSpec)))

Medium-Priority Files (Informational Output)

pkg/cli/update_actions.go (1 instance) - List formatting
pkg/cli/docker_images.go (1 instance) - Download status
pkg/cli/audit.go (4 instances) - Log path display
pkg/cli/shell_completion.go (2 instances) - Installation instructions
pkg/cli/copilot_setup.go (2 instances) - Setup status messages
pkg/cli/deps_security.go (4 instances) - Security advisory display

2. Direct stdout Usage (fmt.Println/fmt.Printf)

Found in pkg/cli/trial_command.go (7 instances):

// ❌ Current - stdout output
fmt.Println(console.FormatSuccessMessage(fmt.Sprintf("=== Safe Outputs from %s ===", parsedSpec.WorkflowName)))
fmt.Println(string(outputBytes))

// ✅ Suggested - stderr output (follows AGENTS.md guidance)
fmt.Fprintln(os.Stderr, console.FormatSuccessMessage(fmt.Sprintf("=== Safe Outputs from %s ===", parsedSpec.WorkflowName)))
fmt.Fprintln(os.Stderr, string(outputBytes))

Rationale: AGENTS.md specifies "ALWAYS use fmt.Fprintln(os.Stderr, ...) for CLI logging"

3. Hardcoded ANSI Escape Sequences

Justifiable Uses

pkg/logger/logger.go (13 color codes)

✅ Acceptable: Logger package manages its own color system independently
Colors: Blue, Green, Orange, Purple, Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Red, Dark Green, Light Blue, Brown, Dark Blue
Used for debug output categorization

pkg/console/spinner.go and pkg/console/console.go (3 instances)

✅ Acceptable: Line clearing (\r\033[K) and screen clearing (\033[2J\033[H)
TTY-specific control sequences not available in Lipgloss

pkg/cli/logs_orchestrator.go (1 instance)

✅ Acceptable: Progress indicator line clearing (\r\033[K)

4. Lipgloss Tree Package Opportunity

Current State: No usage of lipgloss/tree package found.

Opportunity: Hierarchical output for:

MCP server configuration display (pkg/cli/mcp_list.go)
Workflow dependency trees (pkg/cli/deps_report.go)
Tool hierarchy visualization

Example Implementation:

import "github.com/charmbracelet/lipgloss/tree"

// MCP server hierarchy
t := tree.Root("Workflows").
    Child(
        tree.Root("workflow1.md").
            Child("github - 5 tools").
            Child("bash - enabled").
            Child("web-fetch - allowed: github.com"),
    ).
    Child(
        tree.Root("workflow2.md").
            Child("playwright - chromium, firefox"),
    ).
    Enumerator(tree.RoundedEnumerator).
    EnumeratorStyle(styles.TreeEnumerator).
    ItemStyle(styles.TreeNode)

fmt.Fprintln(os.Stderr, t.String())

Potential Files:

pkg/cli/mcp_list.go - Show MCP configuration hierarchy
pkg/cli/tool_graph.go - Visualize tool dependency graphs
pkg/cli/deps_report.go - Show dependency trees

Best Practices Assessment

✅ Excellent Patterns

Centralized Style System
- Single source of truth in pkg/styles/theme.go
- Adaptive colors for light/dark terminals
- Semantic naming (ColorError, ColorSuccess, etc.)
- Pre-configured styles for common use cases
Comprehensive TTY Detection
- Dedicated pkg/tty package using golang.org/x/term
- Consistent checks throughout codebase
- Proper fallbacks for non-TTY environments
Accessibility Support
- ACCESSIBLE environment variable respected
- TERM=dumb detection
- NO_COLOR support
- Graceful degradation in forms and spinners
Struct-Tag-Based Rendering
- console.RenderStruct() with reflection
- Tags: console:"title:...", console:"header:...", console:"omitempty", console:"-"
- Automatic table generation from Go structs
Proper Error Formatting
- Rust-like compiler error display
- IDE-parseable format
- Source context with line numbers
- Syntax highlighting

⚠️ Areas for Standardization

Inconsistent Message Formatting
- Some files use console formatters consistently
- Others use raw fmt.Fprintf for similar output
- No clear pattern for when to use which approach
stdout vs. stderr Output
- Most output correctly goes to stderr
- Some exceptions in trial_command.go
- AGENTS.md specifies stderr for all non-JSON output
Limited Table Usage
- Only 3 CLI files use console.RenderTable()
- Many opportunities for table formatting in list/report commands
- Manual formatting could be replaced with lipgloss tables

Recommendations

Priority 1: Standardize Message Formatting

Goal: Ensure all user-facing output uses console formatting helpers.

Action Items:

Create linter rule or pre-commit hook to detect raw fmt.Fprintf(os.Stderr, ...) in pkg/cli
Add to contribution guidelines in AGENTS.md
Refactor high-priority files (trial_command.go, mcp_list_tools.go, add_command.go)

Example Rule:

// In pkg/cli files, prefer:
fmt.Fprintln(os.Stderr, console.FormatInfoMessage("..."))

// Over:
fmt.Fprintf(os.Stderr, "...\n")

Priority 2: Expand Table Usage

Goal: Leverage lipgloss tables for structured data display.

Candidates:

pkg/cli/compile_stats.go - Compilation statistics
pkg/cli/logs_metrics.go - Log analysis metrics
pkg/cli/audit_report_render.go - Audit report display
pkg/cli/firewall_log.go - Firewall rule display

Benefits:

Automatic column alignment
Consistent styling
Built-in zebra striping
Adaptive width calculation

Priority 3: Introduce Tree Visualizations

Goal: Use lipgloss tree package for hierarchical data.

Implementation Plan:

Add tree rendering helper to pkg/console/console.go
Update pkg/cli/mcp_list.go to show workflow → servers → tools hierarchy
Add tree view option to pkg/cli/deps_report.go

Expected Impact:

Clearer visualization of nested structures
Better user experience for complex configurations
Consistent tree rendering across commands

Priority 4: Enhance Interactive Features

Goal: Expand Huh usage for more interactive workflows.

Opportunities:

Confirmation prompts in pkg/cli/remove_command.go
MCP server selection in pkg/cli/mcp_add.go
Workflow selection in pkg/cli/compile_command.go (multi-select)
Secret input in pkg/cli/secret_set_command.go (password field)

Example:

// Current: Manual confirmation
var response string
fmt.Printf("Remove workflow '%s'? (y/n): ", workflowName)
fmt.Scanln(&response)

// Suggested: Huh confirm field
var confirmed bool
form := huh.NewForm(
    huh.NewGroup(
        huh.NewConfirm().
            Title(fmt.Sprintf("Remove workflow '%s'?", workflowName)).
            Affirmative("Yes, remove").
            Negative("No, cancel").
            Value(&confirmed),
    ),
).WithAccessible(isAccessibleMode())

Technical Details

Dependencies

From go.mod:

github.com/charmbracelet/bubbles v0.21.1-0.20250623103423-23b8fd6302d7
github.com/charmbracelet/bubbletea v1.3.10
github.com/charmbracelet/huh v0.8.0
github.com/charmbracelet/lipgloss v1.1.1-0.20250319133953-166f707985bc
golang.org/x/term v0.38.0

All dependencies are modern and actively maintained.

Console Package Metrics

Total Lines: ~5,888 LOC
Files: 20 Go files
Test Coverage: Comprehensive golden tests and unit tests
Lipgloss Integration: Direct usage in 8 files
Bubbles Integration: List and spinner components
Huh Integration: Interactive forms in cli package

TTY Detection Architecture

pkg/tty/tty.go (21 LOC)
├── IsStdoutTerminal() → golang.org/x/term
└── IsStderrTerminal() → golang.org/x/term

Used by:
├── pkg/console/list.go (TTY vs. text list)
├── pkg/console/spinner.go (animation enable/disable)
├── pkg/console/layout.go (styled vs. plain output)
└── pkg/cli/interactive.go (accessible mode detection)

Conclusion

The gh-aw codebase demonstrates exemplary adoption of the Charmbracelet ecosystem with a well-designed console abstraction layer. The architecture is sound, with proper TTY detection, accessibility support, and adaptive styling throughout.

Summary Scores

Category	Rating	Notes
Architecture	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐	Excellent console package structure
Lipgloss Adoption	⭐⭐⭐⭐☆	Good usage, opportunity for tree package
Huh Integration	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐	Best-in-class interactive forms
Accessibility	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐	Comprehensive accessibility support
Consistency	⭐⭐⭐☆☆	97 instances of raw formatting remain
TTY Detection	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐	Proper detection throughout

Next Steps

✅ Keep Current Practices:
- Continue using console package for all new code
- Maintain accessibility support in interactive components
- Follow adaptive color patterns
📋 Standardization:
- Refactor 97 instances of raw fmt.Fprintf to use console formatters
- Add linter rule to prevent future raw formatting
- Update contribution guidelines
🚀 Enhancement:
- Add lipgloss tree package integration
- Expand table usage for structured data
- Add more Huh forms for interactive workflows

Analysis Date: 2026-01-04
Analyzer: Terminal Stylist Agent
Files Analyzed: 391 Go source files
Console Package: 20 files, ~5,888 LOC
CLI Files: 65 files using console formatting correctly

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Executive Summary

Key Findings

Architecture Overview

Console Package Structure

Styles Package

Current Lipgloss Usage

✅ Excellent Implementations

Improvement Opportunities

1. Raw fmt.Fprintf Usage (97 Instances)

2. Direct stdout Usage (fmt.Println/fmt.Printf)

3. Hardcoded ANSI Escape Sequences

4. Lipgloss Tree Package Opportunity

Best Practices Assessment

✅ Excellent Patterns

⚠️ Areas for Standardization

Recommendations

Priority 1: Standardize Message Formatting

Priority 2: Expand Table Usage

Priority 3: Introduce Tree Visualizations

Priority 4: Enhance Interactive Features

Technical Details

Dependencies

Console Package Metrics

TTY Detection Architecture

Conclusion

Summary Scores

Next Steps

Replies: 0 comments

github-actions[bot]
bot Jan 4, 2026