Coming from ora
An ora alternative with a drop-in path: import ora from flagstaff/ora, graded 99 / 99 by ora's own test suite — then a frame loop whose static projection gives pipes one line per state and --json one event per transition.
flagstaff is an ora alternative you adopt by changing one import. flagstaff/ora is
ora 9's whole API, and ora's own test suite is the grade.
Migrate from ora in one import
- import ora from 'ora';
+ import ora from 'flagstaff/ora';Everything else stays: ora({ text, spinner, color, indent, prefixText, suffixText }),
.start() .stop() .succeed() .fail() .warn() .info() .stopAndPersist(), oraPromise() and
the spinners corpus. The cursor is restored on a clean exit and on SIGINT, SIGTERM and
SIGHUP, as ora's is.
Is flagstaff compatible with ora?
Graded, not claimed. ora's own suite, vendored at 9.4.1 and unmodified apart from the import
specifier, runs against flagstaff/ora beside a control that runs it against real ora:
| passing | rate | |
|---|---|---|
flagstaff/ora | 99 / 99 | 100.0% |
| ora itself (control) | 99 / 99 | 100.0% |
From Compatibility, which npm run compat:page generates from the
oracle's last run; that page is the authority. The same page grades flagstaff's
log-update, boxen and cli-table3 paths.
What you gain over ora
flagstaff/ora is deliberately ora's behaviour to the byte, so the façade alone changes the
dependency tree and not the output. The gain is the frame loop underneath it, hoist(),
which you adopt a file at a time:
| mode | what hoist() writes for the same three calls |
|---|---|
tty | the spinner, repainted in place, then the final line left on screen |
pipe, ci | one line per state change — no \r, no escape |
json | one NDJSON event per transition, on stderr |
accessible | the static text, never a redraw |
ora, off a terminal, still prints frames — \r after \r into the log an agent reads back.
Every flagstaff component has a required static(state), and that static projection is
what a pipe, an agent and a screen reader get. Which mode runs is decided once by roundel's
output policy, never by the component.
When to switch from ora
- Your CLI's output is read by an agent or captured in CI logs.
- You want spinners, progress, boxes and tables on one loop rather than four packages.
The loop, the built-ins and the other drop-in paths are on flagstaff.