Adding colors to FRR CLI output
===============================


There were multiple approaches/attempts to get colored output for the CLI into
FRR, most recently End of 2022 in PR #12497.  After some discussion, some items
crystallized out:

First, generally speaking, colors (or other rich output formatting) must be
used sparingly.  In particular, e.g. "every IP address" is not something to
color.  The output formatting needs to have an actual purpose to improve UX,
not turn it into a christmas tree.

In the long run, the CLI will hopefully become a YANG frontend.  In that case,
the CLI frontend component is a great place to apply all kinds of output/UI/UX
features.  However, this is a long way off.

That said, an implementation in the current vtysh+daemon ecosystem is not out
of the question, especially if the use of colors/formatting is limited to
important places (which is desirable anyway - see general statement above.)
We don't want to litter formatting all over every single vty_out call.

A color option on a per-command/DEFUN level (i.e. the way `[json]` is done) was
rejected.  The decision to color output must take information from vtysh's
environment into account, notably the TERM environment variable, the NO_COLOR
environment variable, and whether stdout is a terminal or not.  An explicit
`--color` switch (or `terminal color` vtysh command, or other similar things)
is needed too.  To be clear, the switch must not be on individual commands, it
needs to be on the vtysh session level.

Lastly, the output pager needs to work with this.


Suggested implementation
------------------------

(not part of the consensus / accord, only to record discussion)

As far as discussion went, the most promising approach to actually implement
this is to put some type of unconditional formatting tag into daemon's vty_out
calls.  This would be some escape-like sequence - an actual ANSI color code
itself is not particularly readable or pretty, though that would work as well.
vtysh would then, while passing through the output from the daemons, replace or
remove these tags according to terminal/user settings.