NO_PROGRESS

Inspired by the NO_COLOR standard, this specification describes a NO_PROGRESS standard for disabling command-line spinners and progress bars outputs. While this output can be useful, some terminal outputs do not handle the ANSI escape code sequence (\033[2K or \x1b[2K) for clearing an entire line. Additionally, tools such as GitHub Workflows cannot handle command-line spinners and progress bars altogether.

As such, the informal standard proposed in 2026 to account for this is thus:

Command-line software which adds ANSI spinners and/or progress bars to its output by default should check for a NO_PROGRESS environment variable that, when present and not an empty string (regardless of its value), prevents the display of ANSI spinners and/or progress bars.

By adopting this standard, environments that require no spinners and/or progress bars can export NO_PROGRESS=1 to their shell's environment and automatically disable these spinners and progress bars by default in all supported software.

Example Integration

// Access the available environment variable.
const no_progress = process.env.NO_PROGRESS;
 
// We only enable spinners and progress bars if "undefined" or explicitly "0".
const enabled = no_progress === undefined || no_progress === '0';

Core Reasoning

The primary reason for integrating this standard into your libraries and software pertains to accessibility. When spinners and progress bars are present, they disrupt how screen readers parse information which leads to cluttered and confusioning outputs.

This can also lead to issues in non-tty environments (such as outputing to a file, or GitHub Actions), where similarly jumbled outputs occur. By allowing a way to disable spinners and progress bars, this standard provides both a strong case for accessibility and for general development.

Adherent Libraries

Frameworks that currently adhere to the NO_PROGRESS standard:

No libraries so far...

Adherent Software

Executables that currently adhere to the NO_PROGRESS standard: