Enhance Trails CLI Output Coloring

Claude Code·Opus 4.8·

computermode·2mo ago·20hr 49min·2 Checkpoints·4 file changes·+267/-91·233.7K tokens

Base directory for this skill: /Users/ninawork/.claude/plugins/cache/claude-plugins-official/superpowers/6.0.3/skills/brainstorming

Brainstorming Ideas Into Designs

Help turn ideas into fully formed designs and specs through natural collaborative dialogue.

Start by understanding the current project context, then ask questions one at a time to refine the idea. Once you understand what you're building, present the design and get user approval.

<HARD-GATE> Do NOT invoke any implementation skill, write any code, scaffold any project, or take any implementation action until you have presented a design and the user has approved it. This applies to EVERY project regardless of perceived simplicity. </HARD-GATE>

Anti-Pattern: "This Is Too Simple To Need A Design"

Every project goes through this process. A todo list, a single-function utility, a config change — all of them. "Simple" projects are where unexamined assumptions cause the most wasted work. The design can be short (a few sentences for truly simple projects), but you MUST present it and get approval.

Checklist

You MUST create a task for each of these items and complete them in order:

Explore project context — check files, docs, recent commits
Offer the visual companion just-in-time — NOT upfront. The first time a question would genuinely be clearer shown than described, offer it then (its own message); on approval its browser tab opens for you. If no visual question ever arises, never offer it. See the Visual Companion section below.
Ask clarifying questions — one at a time, understand purpose/constraints/success criteria
Propose 2-3 approaches — with trade-offs and your recommendation
Present design — in sections scaled to their complexity, get user approval after each section
Write design doc — save to docs/superpowers/specs/YYYY-MM-DD-<topic>-design.md and commit
Spec self-review — quick inline check for placeholders, contradictions, ambiguity, scope (see below)
User reviews written spec — ask user to review the spec file before proceeding
Transition to implementation — invoke writing-plans skill to create implementation plan

Process Flow

The terminal state is invoking writing-plans. Do NOT invoke frontend-design, mcp-builder, or any other implementation skill. The ONLY skill you invoke after brainstorming is writing-plans.

The Process

Understanding the idea:

Check out the current project state first (files, docs, recent commits)
Before asking detailed questions, assess scope: if the request describes multiple independent subsystems (e.g., "build a platform with chat, file storage, billing, and analytics"), flag this immediately. Don't spend questions refining details of a project that needs to be decomposed first.
If the project is too large for a single spec, help the user decompose into sub-projects: what are the independent pieces, how do they relate, what order should they be built? Then brainstorm the first sub-project through the normal design flow. Each sub-project gets its own spec → plan → implementation cycle.
For appropriately-scoped projects, ask questions one at a time to refine the idea
Prefer multiple choice questions when possible, but open-ended is fine too
Only one question per message - if a topic needs more exploration, break it into multiple questions
Focus on understanding: purpose, constraints, success criteria

Exploring approaches:

Propose 2-3 different approaches with trade-offs
Present options conversationally with your recommendation and reasoning
Lead with your recommended option and explain why

Presenting the design:

Once you believe you understand what you're building, present the design
Scale each section to its complexity: a few sentences if straightforward, up to 200-300 words if nuanced
Ask after each section whether it looks right so far
Cover: architecture, components, data flow, error handling, testing
Be ready to go back and clarify if something doesn't make sense

Design for isolation and clarity:

Break the system into smaller units that each have one clear purpose, communicate through well-defined interfaces, and can be understood and tested independently
For each unit, you should be able to answer: what does it do, how do you use it, and what does it depend on?
Can someone understand what a unit does without reading its internals? Can you change the internals without breaking consumers? If not, the boundaries need work.
Smaller, well-bounded units are also easier for you to work with - you reason better about code you can hold in context at once, and your edits are more reliable when files are focused. When a file grows large, that's often a signal that it's doing too much.

Working in existing codebases:

Explore the current structure before proposing changes. Follow existing patterns.
Where existing code has problems that affect the work (e.g., a file that's grown too large, unclear boundaries, tangled responsibilities), include targeted improvements as part of the design - the way a good developer improves code they're working in.
Don't propose unrelated refactoring. Stay focused on what serves the current goal.

After the Design

Documentation:

Write the validated design (spec) to docs/superpowers/specs/YYYY-MM-DD-<topic>-design.md
- (User preferences for spec location override this default)
Use elements-of-style:writing-clearly-and-concisely skill if available
Commit the design document to git

Spec Self-Review: After writing the spec document, look at it with fresh eyes:

Placeholder scan: Any "TBD", "TODO", incomplete sections, or vague requirements? Fix them.
Internal consistency: Do any sections contradict each other? Does the architecture match the feature descriptions?
Scope check: Is this focused enough for a single implementation plan, or does it need decomposition?
Ambiguity check: Could any requirement be interpreted two different ways? If so, pick one and make it explicit.

Fix any issues inline. No need to re-review — just fix and move on.

User Review Gate: After the spec review loop passes, ask the user to review the written spec before proceeding:

"Spec written and committed to <path>. Please review it and let me know if you want to make any changes before we start writing out the implementation plan."

Wait for the user's response. If they request changes, make them and re-run the spec review loop. Only proceed once the user approves.

Implementation:

Invoke the writing-plans skill to create a detailed implementation plan
Do NOT invoke any other skill. writing-plans is the next step.

Key Principles

One question at a time - Don't overwhelm with multiple questions
Multiple choice preferred - Easier to answer than open-ended when possible
YAGNI ruthlessly - Remove unnecessary features from all designs
Explore alternatives - Always propose 2-3 approaches before settling
Incremental validation - Present design, get approval before moving on
Be flexible - Go back and clarify when something doesn't make sense

Visual Companion

A browser-based companion for showing mockups, diagrams, and visual options during brainstorming. Available as a tool — not a mode. Accepting the companion means it's available for questions that benefit from visual treatment; it does NOT mean every question goes through the browser.

Offering the companion (just-in-time): Do NOT offer it upfront. Wait until a question would genuinely be clearer shown than told — a real mockup / layout / diagram question, not merely a UI topic. The first time that happens, offer it then, as its own message:

"This next part might be easier if I show you — I can put together mockups, diagrams, and comparisons in a browser tab as we go. It's still new and can be token-intensive. Want me to? I'll open it for you."

This offer MUST be its own message. Only the offer — no clarifying question, summary, or other content. Wait for the user's response. If they accept, start the server with --open so their browser opens to the first screen automatically. If they decline, continue text-only and don't offer again unless they raise it.

Per-question decision: Even after the user accepts, decide FOR EACH QUESTION whether to use the browser or the terminal. The test: would the user understand this better by seeing it than reading it?

Use the browser for content that IS visual — mockups, wireframes, layout comparisons, architecture diagrams, side-by-side visual designs
Use the terminal for content that is text — requirements questions, conceptual choices, tradeoff lists, A/B/C/D text options, scope decisions

A question about a UI topic is not automatically a visual question. "What does personality mean in this context?" is a conceptual question — use the terminal. "Which wizard layout works better?" is a visual question — use the browser.

If they agree to the companion, read the detailed guide before proceeding: skills/brainstorming/visual-companion.md

2mo ago·8m

This gives me everything I need. Here's a key structural finding that shapes the whole design:

The data is already there — the CLI just throws it away. TrailResource from the server carries UnresolvedCount, CommentCount, CheckpointCount, CommitsAhead, Priority, Type, Reviewers, MergedAt — but ToMetadata() drops every one of them. So "more useful info" is largely plumbing existing fields through, not new API work. And printTrailReviewDashboard already has counts + an Actions: footer (in plain text), so there's a precedent to align everyone to.

Let me frame three approaches, then show you a concrete mockup.

Three directions

A. Adopt status_style.go, surface the dropped data, add Next: footers (recommended) Reuse the existing statusStyles helpers (identityBullet, metadataRows, sectionRule, color-aware rendering) so trail output looks like entire status/explain. Plumb the dropped count fields through Metadata. Add a short next-steps footer. Low risk, high consistency, hits all three of your goals.

B. Full per-command dashboards (panels/boxes, heavier layout). More visual punch, but diverges from the lean terminal style the rest of the CLI uses, and it's a lot more code/maintenance.

C. Minimal — just colorize existing layouts + add counts, no structural change. Cheapest, but leaves show/list/watch visually inconsistent with each other and misses the actionability goal.

I recommend A: it's the only one that satisfies visual consistency and actionability without inventing a new visual language.

Here's the first concrete section — trail show — so you can react to the actual look. Current vs. proposed:

Current

Proposed (orange ● bullet, dim labels, section rule, Next: footer — all from statusStyles)

Key moves: title promoted into the identity bullet; branch → base and status · phase combined onto single lines; raw ISO timestamps become relative (2h ago) folded into an activity line alongside the now-surfaced checkpoint/commit counts; findings line is new (from UnresolvedCount/CommentCount); Next footer guides the user forward and only lists findings when there are unresolved ones.

Does this trail show direction look right before I mock up list and watch? Anything you'd cut, add, or reorder (e.g. do you want ID kept, even if dimmed)?

That settles it — final scope is small and focused: only trail list changes.

Consolidated design

Everything else stays exactly as-is: show, watch, all command behavior, all columns, JSON output. The change is purely cosmetic color on trail list, applied through the existing status_style.go system so it matches entire status/explain.

1. Header → dim section rule. The current Recent trails · 3 (and its variants — Open · 3 trails, Your trails (login) · …) renders as a dim section rule:

Reuses statusStyles.sectionRule; the composed header text becomes the rule's label. All existing header variants keep their text, just rendered as a rule.

2. STATUS values colored. merged = green, closed = red/gray, open (and any other) = default. Values only — the column still appears under the same conditions as today.

3. Color-aware, alignment-safe.

Plain text when the output isn't a TTY (piped/redirected), so scripts and the existing tests see unchanged bytes. Gated on shouldUseColor(w).
Alignment gotcha: the table uses text/tabwriter, which counts ANSI escape bytes as width and would misalign colored cells. The colored STATUS cell must wrap its escape sequences in the tabwriter escape byte (0xff) so they're treated as zero-width. The spec will call this out explicitly as a required implementation detail (with a test asserting columns stay aligned with color on).

No findings column, no Next: footer, no JSON changes.

That's the whole thing. If this looks right, I'll write it up as a short spec in docs/superpowers/specs/ and we move to an implementation plan. Anything to adjust first?

Spec written to docs/superpowers/specs/2026-06-30-trail-list-status-color-design.md. Self-review passed — no placeholders, internally consistent, single-plan scope, colors and the tabwriter alignment gotcha are both spelled out explicitly.

A couple of notes:

I did not commit it. Your project rule is "commit only when explicitly requested," which overrides the brainstorming default — say the word and I'll commit.
The one genuinely non-obvious requirement is the text/tabwriter 0xff-escape handling for ANSI codes; without it, coloring the STATUS cell silently misaligns every column to its right. The spec flags it with a dedicated alignment test.

Please review the spec and let me know if you want any changes. Once you're happy, I'll move to writing the implementation plan.

Done. The change is implemented, tested, and lint-clean.

What changed

cmd/entire/cli/trail_cmd.go — trail list now colors the STATUS column (merged green, closed gray; open/draft stay default), color-aware via the shared status_style.go system. printTrailRows split into:

a fast path (no color / non-TTY) that's byte-identical to the old output, and
a color path plus helpers writeTabTable, tabTableLines, spliceColumnColor, trailStatusColor.

cmd/entire/cli/trail_cmd_test.go — TestSpliceColumnColor_… (mechanism) and TestPrintTrailListPlainWhenNotATerminal (regression).

Spec updated to match the real mechanism.

The important correction

My spec originally claimed the tabwriter 0xff-escape trick would make ANSI zero-width. I tested it — it's false. text/tabwriter counts escaped content at full width; the escape mechanism only suppresses tab/newline interpretation. Coloring a cell before layout shifted every column to its right (the first test caught it).

The working approach: lay out plain, then splice color into the exact STATUS span, located via a same-length 0x01 sentinel mask. It's collision-free (a "merged" in a title is never matched) and alignment-preserving (ANSI never reaches the width calc). The test proves this with literal ANSI and an adversarial duplicate token.

Verification

go test ./cmd/entire/cli/ — full package passes (incl. all Trail tests).
mise run lint — 0 issues.

Caveats / not done

Not committed — per your "commit only when requested" rule. Say the word.
In-process tests can't assert real ANSI emission: lipgloss strips ANSI without a TTY (same limitation status_test.go documents), so the splice mechanism is tested with injected ANSI while statusStyles.render is relied on as shared, proven infra. Worth a quick eyeball in a real terminal (entire trail list --status any with a merged/closed trail) to confirm the colors look right to you.
show and watch untouched, as agreed.

/simplify → 4 cleanup agents in parallel → apply the fixes

You are improving the quality of the changed code, not hunting for bugs. Review it for reuse, simplification, efficiency, and altitude issues, then fix what you find. Do not look for correctness bugs — that is what /code-review is for.

Phase 0 — Gather the diff

Run git diff @{upstream}...HEAD (or git diff main...HEAD / git diff HEAD~1 if there's no upstream) to get the unified diff under review. If there are uncommitted changes, or the range diff is empty, also run git diff HEAD and include the working-tree changes in scope — the review often runs before the commit. If a PR number, branch name, or file path was passed as an argument, review that target instead. Treat this diff as the review scope.

Phase 1 — Review (4 cleanup agents in parallel)

Launch 4 independent review agents via the Agent tool, all in a single message so they run concurrently. Pass each agent the diff and one of the four angles below. Each returns its findings with file, line, a one-line summary, and the concrete cost (what is duplicated, wasted, or harder to maintain).

Reuse

Flag new code that re-implements something the codebase already has — Grep shared/utility modules and files adjacent to the change, and name the existing helper to call instead.

Simplification

Flag unnecessary complexity the diff adds: redundant or derivable state, copy-paste with slight variation, deep nesting, dead code left behind. Name the simpler form that does the same job.

Efficiency

Flag wasted work the diff introduces: redundant computation or repeated I/O, independent operations run sequentially, blocking work added to startup or hot paths. Also flag long-lived objects built from closures or captured environments — they keep the entire enclosing scope alive for the object's lifetime (a memory leak when that scope holds large values); prefer a class/struct that copies only the fields it needs. Name the cheaper alternative.

Altitude

Check that each change is implemented at the right depth, not as a fragile bandaid. Special cases layered on shared infrastructure are a sign the fix isn't deep enough — prefer generalizing the underlying mechanism over adding special cases.

Phase 2 — Apply the fixes

Wait for all four agents to complete, dedup findings that point at the same line or mechanism, and fix each remaining one directly. Skip any finding whose fix would change intended behavior, require changes well outside the reviewed diff, or that you judge to be a false positive — note the skip rather than arguing with it. Finish with a brief summary of what was fixed and what was skipped (or confirm the code was already clean).

2mo ago·2m

/simplify complete

The four cleanup agents converged on one high-value finding, which I applied; the rest were either subsumed by it or correctly skipped.

Fixed

Reuse + altitude: deleted the bespoke sentinel-mask machinery in favor of an existing renderer. The reuse agent found that corecmd.go already has columnWidths + writeTableRow — a styled-table renderer that pads on lipgloss.Width (ANSI-agnostic) then styles after padding, which is exactly the tabwriter-vs-ANSI problem my code re-solved from scratch. (The altitude agent had wrongly concluded "no table abstraction exists" — the reuse agent caught it; I verified directly.)

This one change resolved four findings at once:

Reuse — now calls the shared columnWidths/writeTableRow.
Altitude #1 (spliceColumnColor's unearned "one column" generality) — function deleted.
Altitude #2 (extract the color path) — the whole second path is gone; one straightforward renderer remains.
Simplification #2 ([]func(string) string closure-per-row was over-engineered) — gone; STATUS is colored inline.

Deleted: writeTabTable, tabTableLines, spliceColumnColor, the two-pass tabwriter layout, the sentinel mask, and the text/tabwriter import. printTrailRows dropped from ~95 lines of novel mechanism to ~65 lines reusing existing infra. Replaced TestSpliceColumnColor with TestTrailStatusColor (tests our mapping, not the dependency, per corecmd_test.go already covering the renderer).

Skipped (with reasons)

Efficiency: newStatusStyles(w) does a terminal-size syscall unused on this path. Negligible (1–2 syscalls on an interactive command that just made an HTTP round-trip), and avoiding it would mean duplicating the green/gray color definitions instead of reusing statusStyles — a reuse regression. Not worth it.
trailStatusColor's explicit draft/open case looks redundant vs default. Confirmed required by the repo's exhaustive linter — not a defect.
Reuse agent's "trailStatusColor duplicates columnStyle". Rejected: columnStyle is position-based gray/white; trailStatusColor is semantic (merged=green/closed=gray). Different purpose.

Verification

Byte-identical plain (non-color) output vs the old tabwriter renderer, proven by a scratch parity test across every column combination including empty-branch and untitled rows (then removed).
mise run lint — 0 issues. Full cmd/entire/cli package tests pass.
Spec updated to document the reuse-based mechanism.

Still uncommitted, per your standing rule.

All green. Here's the resolution.

Why you saw no color

Not a lipgloss bug — I verified v2.0.4 emits ANSI fine. The bare entire trail list can't show STATUS color by design: it defaults to --status open (a single-status filter), which hides the STATUS column entirely (showStatus = len(filters) != 1), and open is uncolored anyway. So the only-STATUS coloring was invisible in the common path — a real gap.

What I changed

Extended coloring to the columns that actually appear in the default view:

Column	Color	When
STATUS	merged→green, closed→gray	`--status any` / multi-status views
PHASE	yellow	any non-empty phase
AUTHOR	cyan	any non-empty author

AUTHOR shows in the default entire trail list, so after a rebuild you'll now see cyan authors (and yellow phases where present) with the bare command. PHASE is a free-form string (has_code, etc. — no enum), so it's one uniform accent rather than per-value.

Verification

lint: 0 issues; full cmd/entire/cli package tests pass.
Non-TTY output stays plain/byte-identical (color gated on colorEnabled).
Placeholders (PHASE -, empty author) left uncolored.
Spec updated to the expanded scope.

Rebuild and run entire trail list — you should see color now. Colors are trivial to adjust if cyan/yellow/green/gray aren't to your taste. Still uncommitted.

No output wrapping, no color-profile downgrade in the code — so if w is really your terminal, color must emit. That means the break is at runtime, and I need evidence from your actual binary instead of more guessing. Two prime suspects: (a) you ran a stale/installed entire rather than the freshly built ./entire, or (b) color detection returns false in your environment.

mise run build writes ./entire in the repo dir. Please run these from the repo root and paste the output:

The key comparison: does ./entire status show any color? It uses the exact same statusStyles system.

If ./entire status has color but ./entire trail list doesn't → the bug is in my trail code; I'll dig there.
If ./entire status also has no color → it's global color detection in your terminal/env (pre-existing, not my change), and which entire / NO_COLOR / TERM will tell us why.
If which entire points somewhere other than ./entire → you were running a stale binary; rerun with ./entire.

One thing I can rule out already: I tested this repo's lipgloss v2.0.4 directly — NewStyle().Foreground(Color("2")).Render("merged") returns \x1b[32mmerged\x1b[m, so the color source itself works. The question is purely whether colorEnabled is true when you run it.

Exactly one command changed: entire trail list.

The diff only touched printTrailRows, whose entire call chain is single-caller:

printTrailRows ← printTrailList (trail_cmd.go:600) ← runTrailListAllWithClient (trail_cmd.go:473) ← entire trail list

Nothing else calls those functions, and the deleted helpers (writeTabTable, tabTableLines, spliceColumnColor) and new trailStatusColor were used only there.

Scope within entire trail list:

Changed: the human-readable table (the NUM/BRANCH/TITLE/STATUS/PHASE/AUTHOR/UPDATED/URL rows) — now renders via the shared columnWidths/writeTableRow and pre-colors STATUS/PHASE/AUTHOR on a TTY.
Unchanged: --json output (returns before printTrailList), the empty-state message (printTrailListEmpty), and the header line (Recent trails · N, etc., printed by printTrailListHeader).

Note it's reachable only as entire trail list — the trail group is hidden and has no top-level alias for list, so no other command surface exposes this output.

Done. entire trail show now colors the same three fields as list, using the same helpers.

What changed

printTrailDetails (trail_cmd.go) now pre-colors, on a TTY:

Status — merged→green, closed→gray (via the shared trailStatusColor); open/draft plain
Author — cyan (when non-empty)
Phase — yellow (only shown when non-empty)

Everything else (title, number, ID, branch, base, URL, labels, assignees, dates, description) stays plain. Non-TTY output is byte-identical — color is gated on styles.colorEnabled, so existing printTrailDetails tests (which use a buffer) stay green.

Verification

mise run lint — 0 issues; Trail tests pass.
Reuses trailStatusColor + statusStyles — no new mechanism.
Spec updated: show moved from out-of-scope into scope.

show uses fmt.Fprintf directly (not a tabwriter), so there was no alignment concern — coloring the values is straightforward.

Note the separate open thread: you reported list color still isn't visible after rebuild. show will have the same dependency on colorEnabled being true on your terminal, so whatever we find from those diagnostics (which entire, ./entire status, NO_COLOR/TERM) applies to both. Still uncommitted.

I've exhausted what code-reading can prove: no output wrapping, no global color disable, and I confirmed lipgloss v2 emits ANSI unconditionally. So colorEnabled must be resolving to false at runtime — and the only inputs to that are (1) stdout isn't a real TTY, (2) NO_COLOR set, or (3) TERM=cygwin/empty.

I need one piece of runtime evidence. Please run this exact block and paste the output — it's read-only, no rebuild:

What each line tells us:

[ -t 1 ] — this is exactly what IsTerminalWriter checks. If it says NOT a tty, that's the whole answer: your shell here isn't a pty (output is captured/piped), so colorEnabled is false and the code is working correctly — color only renders to a real terminal. Nothing to fix.
NO_COLOR/TERM — a non-empty NO_COLOR or TERM=cygwin/empty also forces color off.
printf — if GREEN doesn't appear green, your terminal itself isn't rendering ANSI, independent of entire.
ls -l ./entire — confirms the binary's build time is recent (that you actually rebuilt it).

My strong suspicion is [ -t 1 ] will report not a tty — that fully explains why neither list nor show colorizes, and would mean the implementation is correct. But the paste will settle it definitively instead of me guessing further.

The show code is correct and identical in logic to list (same colorEnabled, same cmd.OutOrStdout(), same helpers). Since list colors and show doesn't in the same terminal, and list proves colorEnabled is true, the likely explanation is that trail 696's fields aren't colorable: status: open is deliberately uncolored, and if it has no phase, the only remaining colorable field is the author.

To confirm it's data vs. a real bug, paste the actual ./entire trail show 696 output (the plain text you see):

I'm specifically checking:

Status: — is it open/draft? Those are intentionally not colored (only merged=green, closed=gray).
Author: — is there a value? If yes, it should be cyan; if that line is missing/empty, there's nothing to color.
Phase: — is the line present? Only shows (yellow) when non-empty.

If 696 is open, has an Author: value, no Phase: — and the author isn't cyan — that's a real bug and I'll dig in. But if it's open with no author/phase, then show is working; there's just nothing colorable on that particular trail.

Quick cross-check that settles it immediately: run show on a trail you can see is merged or closed in your list output — its Status: should render green/gray. If that colors, 696 was simply an all-plain trail.

Done. Both enhancements are in.

Status colors (GitHub-style, all four now colored)

Status	Color
open	green
merged	magenta
closed	red
draft	gray/dim
unknown	plain

Added magenta (ANSI 5) to the shared statusStyles. All four avoid AUTHOR's cyan and PHASE's yellow, so columns stay distinguishable. Applies to both list and show.

Headers

list: the column header row (NUM/BRANCH/TITLE/…) now renders bold gray via the shared newTableStyles(w).header — same style as other CLI tables. Data rows still pass through pre-colored cells.
show: field labels (Number:, Branch:, Status:, …) render dim and the Trail: <title> line renders bold, matching entire explain. Values keep their own colors (status/author/phase).

Verification

mise run lint — 0 issues; full cmd/entire/cli package tests pass.
Non-TTY output stays byte-identical: labels/header go through passthrough styles when colorEnabled is false (the format strings are unchanged in the plain case), so existing printTrailList/printTrailDetails tests still hold.
Updated TestTrailStatusColor (open/draft are now colorable) and the spec.

Rebuild and you'll see: colored statuses across the board, a bold-gray header row in list, and dim labels + bold title in show. Colors are one-liners to tweak if magenta/red aren't to taste. Still uncommitted.

Done. Adjustments applied per your feedback:

Changes

No grey anywhere. The list header row and show labels now use bold (high-contrast) instead of grey/dim. Grey is gone from all trail output.
draft → no color. The in-progress/building state renders plain now.
Phase stays yellow. Unchanged.

Final color scheme

Element	Style
status `open`	green
status `merged`	magenta
status `closed`	red
status `draft` / unknown	plain
phase	yellow
author	cyan
list header row	bold
show labels + `Trail:` title	bold

Verification

mise run lint — 0 issues; Trail tests pass.
Non-TTY output stays plain/unchanged.
Updated the trailStatusColor test (draft now uncolored) and the spec.

Rebuild to see it. Still uncommitted.

Done.

Changes

Headers → yellow (was bold/white): the list column header row, and in show the field labels + Trail: title, all render yellow now.
draft/"building" → plain: it was already uncolored from the last round, so no change needed — it renders in the default text color like everything else. Confirmed.

Current scheme

Element	Color
headers (list col row, show labels + title)	yellow
phase	yellow
status open	green
status merged	magenta
status closed	red
status draft / unknown	plain
author	cyan

Verification

mise run lint — 0 issues; Trail tests pass.
Non-TTY output stays plain.
Spec updated.

Rebuild to see it. Still uncommitted — let me know when you'd like it committed.

Base directory for this skill: /Users/ninawork/.claude/skills/pr

Create Pull Request

1. Understand the Branch

Use origin/main as the comparison base for understanding branch scope. Do not use local main, a local PR target branch, or direct tree diffs such as git diff main or git diff origin/main for scope checks; those can include upstream-only changes and make this branch look like it reverted unrelated work.

Read the commit history to understand the full scope of changes on this branch.

Review the changed file list from the merge base to the current working tree and confirm every changed file belongs to the PR's stated goal:

If unrelated files or commits are present, STOP and report them. Do not create a PR that bundles unrelated work.

2. Discover Project Verification Commands

Inspect the project to determine how to build, lint, and test. Collect candidate commands from these sources, then deduplicate them before running anything:

Makefile — look for build, lint, check, test, ci, verify targets. Read the target recipes to understand what they run.
mise — check for .mise.toml or .mise/*.toml. Look for [tasks] definitions covering build, lint, test. If found, use mise run <task>.
CI workflows — read .github/workflows/*.yml (or .gitlab-ci.yml, etc.) to understand required coverage. CI is the ground truth for what must pass, but CI matrix shards and CI-only wrappers are not automatically local verification commands.
README.md — look for "Development", "Contributing", "Building", or "Testing" sections that document how to run checks.
Package manager conventions — detect from project files:
- go.mod → go build ./..., go vet ./..., go test ./...; do NOT infer a lint command from Go alone
- package.json → check scripts for build, lint, test
- Cargo.toml → cargo build, cargo clippy, cargo test
- pyproject.toml / setup.py → check for configured linters, pytest

If no lint command exists after checking all sources, state that explicitly instead of assuming an unavailable linter binary.

Reuse Cached Verification Discovery

Before rediscovering commands from scratch, choose an artifact directory using the AGENTS.md temporary artifact rule with agent name pfleidi-pr:

Use ./tmp/pfleidi-pr/ only when ./tmp/ already exists and is already ignored.
If no project-local artifact directory is available, do not use a verification cache by default. Ask before using /tmp/pfleidi-pr/ or modifying ignore files.

When an artifact directory is available, check for a verification cache at <artifact-dir>/verification-<repo-name>.md. The cache is only an input-token optimization; never commit it and never trust it blindly. If no artifact directory is available, perform normal discovery and skip writing the cache.

Reuse the cache only when all of these are true:

It names the same worktree root and remote.
It lists the verification source files it was based on, such as Makefile, .mise.toml, .mise/*.toml, CI workflow files, README files, and package manifests.
Those source files still exist or are still intentionally absent.
git diff --name-only origin/main -- <source files> shows no branch changes to those source files.

If the cache is missing, stale, or incomplete, perform normal discovery. After discovery, update the cache with:

Repository root and remote.
Verification source files inspected.
Selected command plan grouped by coverage area.
Commands intentionally skipped as duplicates, aggregate/subtask overlaps, CI-only jobs, or too-slow shard matrices.
Any assumptions, such as "no documented lint task found."

Deduplicate Verification Commands

Build a command plan by coverage area, not by source. Do not run every command discovered.

Run at most one command for each coverage area: build/compile, lint/static analysis, unit/core tests, integration tests, e2e/smoke tests.
Prefer documented local developer tasks over CI-specific commands when they cover the same area.
Do not run both an aggregate task and its constituent tasks. For example, if mise run check runs lint and tests, either run mise run check alone or run the narrower lint/test tasks, not both.
Treat CI matrix shards as duplicated slices of one suite. Do not run every *:shard:* command locally when an unsharded local task covers the suite.
If CI has only sharded commands and no local equivalent, ask before running all shards. Otherwise, run the smallest representative or changed-scope test command and note that the full shard matrix remains for CI.
Do not run CI-only canary/e2e jobs locally by default. Run them only when the PR changes that surface, when the user asks, or when the project documents them as required local PR verification.

Log which sources you used, which duplicate/CI-only commands you skipped, and what commands you will run. If the deduplication rules require asking before slow CI-only coverage, STOP for confirmation; otherwise immediately proceed to step 3.

3. Run Verification and Auto-Fix

Run the deduplicated command plan in the fewest safe batches. Prefer background processing for independent validation tasks instead of running everything sequentially.

The commands should cover, at minimum:

Build — the project compiles without errors
Lint / static analysis — no lint warnings or static analysis failures
Tests — the selected local test coverage passes without duplicating CI shards or aggregate/subtask combinations

Use the exact commands, flags, and build tags found in step 2 for the commands you selected. Do not invent your own flags.

Parallel Verification Rules

Partition the selected commands into dependency-safe batches before running them:

Run mutating commands alone and before validators that depend on their output. This includes formatters, generators, codegen, migrations, package installation, or commands known to update snapshots, lockfiles, generated files, caches in the repo, or test fixtures.
Run dependent commands after their prerequisite batch passes. For example, do not start tests that require generated code until generation succeeds.
Run independent read-only validation commands concurrently in the same background batch. Build, lint/static analysis, typecheck/vet, and unit tests can usually share a batch when they do not mutate the working tree and do not require the same exclusive service, port, database, or fixture directory.
Keep integration, e2e, or service-backed commands separate unless the project documents that they are parallel-safe.
If unsure whether two commands are independent, run them sequentially. Correctness of validation beats speed.

For each background batch:

Start every command from the same working-tree state.
Run each selected validator directly, for example mise run lint, go test ..., or npm test -- .... Do not wrap validators in sh -c, shell redirection, tee, command separators, or pipelines solely to capture logs; that defeats command-prefix approvals and causes extra permission prompts.
Capture each command's stdout, stderr, exit status, and command line from the tool output separately.
While the batch is running, do not edit files, start auto-fixes, or treat partial output as a result.
Wait for every command in the batch to finish, then show verification as a compact table:

Command Exit Relevant output
go test ./pkg/foo -run TestBar -count=1 0 Short success excerpt.
For failures or short outputs, show complete output in the relevant-output column or immediately below the table. For long successful outputs, show the relevant excerpt and state that the rest was truncated.
If any command in the batch fails, treat the whole batch as failed for the fix loop. Results from other commands in that stale batch may help diagnose, but they do not count as passing verification after files change.

Command	Exit	Relevant output
`go test ./pkg/foo -run TestBar -count=1`	0	Short success excerpt.

On Failure: Fix and Re-verify

If any command fails, do NOT stop. Instead:

Read the error output and identify every failure
Fix all issues — apply the minimal changes needed to make the failing command pass
Re-run the deduplicated verification plan from the top, using the same safe batching rules (not just the previously failing command — fixes can introduce new issues)
Show the updated verification table again, including complete failure output for any command that still fails

Repeat this cycle until all commands pass. Cap at 3 fix attempts. If verification still fails after 3 rounds, STOP and present the remaining failures to the user with full failure output — do not keep looping.

4. Prompt for Commit

After all verification passes, check for uncommitted changes:

If there are uncommitted changes (from auto-fixes in step 3):

Show the diff of all uncommitted changes
Propose a semantically correct commit message using the subject-plus-context style from AGENTS.md. The message must describe the net fix (e.g., "fix lint warnings in config parser" not "fix issues found during PR prep").
STOP and wait for user approval. The user may edit the message, split the changes, or commit themselves.

If the user approves the commit, do not rerun the full verification suite before committing unless files changed after step 3. If another sanity check is needed, use the commit-time verification scope from AGENTS.md: lint tasks, a fast compile/build check, and tests directly related to the changed code only.

If there are no uncommitted changes, proceed directly to step 5.

5. Push the Branch

If the branch has no upstream yet, use git push -u origin HEAD.

6. Create the PR

Determine a concise PR title (under 70 characters) from the commit history and diff.

Use the same branch-only comparison from step 1 ($MERGE_BASE to the current working tree) when deriving the title, PR body, changed-file list, and mostly-Markdown detection. Do not use local main or direct git diff origin/main output for PR description decisions.

Write the PR body with:

What this PR does and why
How it was implemented (brief, not exhaustive)
Any migration, deployment, or reviewer notes if applicable
For mostly Markdown PRs, a Rendered Markdown section linking to the changed Markdown files rendered on GitHub

Create the PR:

Create a ready-for-review PR only when the user explicitly asks for it with wording such as "non-draft", "ready for review", or "publish it as ready". In that case, omit --draft.

Show the PR URL and STOP.

Rules

Do NOT add "Generated with Claude Code" or any AI attribution anywhere
Do NOT summarize what you just did after showing the URL
Treat a PR as "mostly Markdown" when more than half of changed files are Markdown (.md, .mdx, .markdown) or the main review target is Markdown documentation. In that case, include GitHub rendered links for the changed Markdown files using the pushed branch, e.g. https://github.com/<owner>/<repo>/blob/<branch>/<path>.md. Link all changed Markdown files when the list is short; for large docs PRs, link the main entry points or most important changed files.
If the user provides a title or description, use it verbatim instead of generating one, but append rendered Markdown links for mostly Markdown PRs unless the user explicitly says not to modify the description.
If the PR description contains checklist items (- [ ]), check them (- [x]) if and only if the corresponding step was actually verified during this workflow (e.g., build passed, tests passed, lint passed). Do NOT check items that were not verified. Do NOT leave items unchecked if they were verified.

2mo ago·6m

Done. Removed the color tests and updated the PR.

Deleted TestTrailStatusColor_ColorsActiveStatuses and TestPrintTrailListPlainWhenNotATerminal — trail_cmd_test.go is now identical to origin/main (no test changes).
Amended the feature commit so the branch now touches only status_style.go and trail_cmd.go.
Force-pushed (feature branch, --force-with-lease).
Verified: mise run lint clean; remaining trail tests pass; package vets clean.

PR #1593 is updated: https://github.com/entireio/cli/pull/1593