Global Options

Every cratis command accepts the following options regardless of which subcommand you run.

—output / -o

Controls the format of command output.

cratis <command> -o <FORMAT>

Value	Description
`table`	Rich terminal table with borders and color. Default in interactive terminals.
`plain`	Tab-separated rows, no decoration. Suitable for shell scripting and parsing.
`json`	Pretty-printed JSON with indentation.
`json-compact`	Compact single-line JSON. Default in AI environments.

In interactive terminals the default is table. In AI assistant environments (Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf) the default is json-compact to minimize token consumption.

Example:

cratis chronicle event-types list -o plain

—quiet / -q

Outputs only the key identifier for each result, one per line, with no headers or decoration.

cratis chronicle observers list -q

This is the most compact output mode. It is designed for piping — the identifiers it prints can be passed directly to other commands:

cratis chronicle observers list -q | xargs -I {} cratis chronicle observers replay {} -y

—yes / -y

Skips confirmation prompts on destructive commands such as replay, retry, and remove.

cratis chronicle observers replay <ID> -y

Use this flag in automation and CI pipelines where interactive confirmation is not possible. Do not use it as a habit when running commands manually — the prompt exists to prevent accidents.

—debug

Prints diagnostic information to stderr before executing the command. No server output is affected.

The debug panel includes:

Config file path
Active context name
Connection string (credentials are redacted)
Management port
Resolved output format
RPC timing for each gRPC call

cratis chronicle observers list --debug

This flag is useful for diagnosing connection problems, verifying which context is active, and measuring server response times.

NO_COLOR Environment Variable

Setting NO_COLOR to any value disables ANSI color codes and falls back to plain output:

NO_COLOR=1 cratis chronicle event-types list

This follows the no-color.org convention and is respected by all output formats.