GeezerVison

#57921 (comment)
As stated here, I too don't think we should override the existing FORCE_COLOR by test.

We definitely shouldn't be creating new, undocumented environment variables like this. There is already NODE_TEST_CONTEXT, which is documented as something that users should not rely on. We would need to leverage that environment variable.

I addressed it by setting NOE_TEXT_CONTEXT to child-v8-test-colorize. What do you think?

Instead of adding a new value for NODE_TEST_CONTEXT, would it work to update shouldColorize() such that:

• process.env.FORCE_COLOR takes the highest priority if it is set.
• The TTY logic is evaluated after that.
• process.env.NODE_TEST_CONTEXT is only considered as a last resort.

Would it be something like this?

    if (process.env.FORCE_COLOR !== undefined) {
      return lazyInternalTTY().getColorDepth() > 2;
    }
    if (stream?.isTTY) {
      return typeof stream.getColorDepth === 'function' ?
        stream.getColorDepth() > 2 : true;
    }

    if (process.env.NODE_TEST_CONTEXT === 'child-v8') {
      return lazyInternalTTY().getColorDepth() > 2;
    }

That alone would result in behavior differing from the existing implementation in scenarios such as the following.

console.log({foo: "bar"})

node  --test index.js | cat > text.txt
{ foo: 'bar' }

# fixed
./out/Debug/node  --test index.js | cat > text.txt
{ foo: �[32m'bar'�[39m }

Regardless of the order within shouldColorize, I think the test process needs some way to know the value of opts.root.harness.shouldColorizeTestFiles in the parent process.

If you want to start passing parent config through to the child, the NODE_TEST_CONTEXT environment variable is probably the best place to do it.

We definitely shouldn't be creating new, undocumented environment variables like this. There is already NODE_TEST_CONTEXT, which is documented as something that users should not rely on. We would need to leverage that environment variable.

Is this new ignoreTestContext argument necessary? It seems like it could be computed within the function based on the value of stream.