CLI: Replace chalk with util.styleText wrapper

[bcotrim]

Related issues

• Fixes STU-1472

How AI was used in this PR

Claude Code drafted the wrapper, tests, and call-site updates. I reviewed the generated code (including a self-review pass that caught a color-depth detection bug in the hex path) and verified behavior manually with FORCE_COLOR=1/3 and NO_COLOR=1.

Proposed Changes

Drops the chalk dependency from apps/cli in favor of Node's built-in util.styleText (Node 20+), as suggested on e18e.dev. Since Studio's CLI requires Node ≥22, styleText is fully available.

• Adds tools/common/lib/chalk.ts: a thin Proxy-based wrapper that exposes a chalk-compatible surface (named styles, chained access like chalk.bold.red, aliased leaves, chalk.hex(...) / chalk.bgHex(...)) backed by util.styleText. Hex colors use raw 24-bit ANSI escapes since styleText doesn't support them, gated on process.stdout.getColorDepth() so terminals without truecolor degrade cleanly. Honors NO_COLOR / FORCE_COLOR / TTY detection.
• Adds tools/common/lib/tests/chalk.test.ts: 7 unit tests covering named, chained, aliased, nested, hex fg, hex bg + named, and truecolor stripping.
• Swaps import chalk from 'chalk' → import chalk from '@studio/common/lib/chalk' across the 6 files in apps/cli that use it. No call-site logic changed.
• Removes chalk from apps/cli/package.json.

Not included

tools/benchmark-site-editor and tools/compare-perf still depend on chalk. They're standalone dev tools (not bundled into the shipped CLI or desktop app), run via ts-node, and have their own tsconfigs that don't resolve the shared wrapper cleanly. I attempted the migration but rolled it back since there's no user-visible benefit and the type resolution was fiddly. Leaving them as-is.

Testing Instructions

1. Pull the branch and run npm install (chalk will be removed from apps/cli).
2. Build the CLI: npm run cli:build
3. Run the wrapper unit tests: npx vitest run tools/common/lib/tests/chalk.test.ts → should show 7 passed.
4. Smoke test in a real terminal:
   • Launch node apps/cli/dist/cli/main.mjs code and verify the AI chat TUI renders with colors (this exercises the largest chalk surface — apps/cli/ai/ui.ts).
   • Trigger the update notifier banner and verify the yellow border + colored version numbers render correctly.
   • Run studio code sessions (or equivalent) to verify the session list styling.
5. Verify env var handling:
   • NO_COLOR=1 node apps/cli/dist/cli/main.mjs <cmd> → no ANSI escapes in output.
   • FORCE_COLOR=3 node apps/cli/dist/cli/main.mjs <cmd> | cat → full truecolor escapes emitted even though stdout is piped.
   • Piping to a file should emit no escapes by default (non-TTY).
6. Cross-platform: please verify on Windows (cmd, PowerShell, Windows Terminal) that colors render — especially the hex/bgHex paths in the AI chat TUI banner.

Verified locally

• ✅ npm run cli:build clean
• ✅ apps/cli typecheck: no new errors
• ✅ Unit tests: 7/7 passing
• ✅ FORCE_COLOR=3 + NO_COLOR=1 behavior matches chalk

Pre-merge Checklist

• Have you checked for TypeScript, React or other console errors?
• Does the CLI build cleanly (`npm run cli:build`)?
• Have you tested on macOS and Windows?
• Have you added or updated tests where appropriate?

[wpmobilebot]

📊 Performance Test Results

Comparing f013c03 vs trunk

app-size

Metric	trunk	f013c03	Diff	Change
App Size (Mac)	1283.06 MB	1283.07 MB	+0.02 MB	⚪ 0.0%

site-editor

Metric	trunk	f013c03	Diff	Change
load	1597 ms	1917 ms	+320 ms	🔴 20.0%

site-startup

Metric	trunk	f013c03	Diff	Change
siteCreation	8114 ms	8138 ms	+24 ms	⚪ 0.0%
siteStartup	4940 ms	4955 ms	+15 ms	⚪ 0.0%

---

Results are median values from multiple test runs.

Legend: 🟢 Improvement (faster) | 🔴 Regression (slower) | ⚪ No change (<50ms diff)

[gcsecsey]

Thanks @bcotrim for working on this, changes LGTM and work well.

The chalk dependency is now removed:

Before	After

And the color behavior also works as described:

Flag	Output
none
NO_COLOR=1
FORCE_COLOR=3

[bcotrim]

@gcsecsey thanks for the review, nice catch on the npm ls! 🙌
I couldn't find any usage of chalk in the pi-tui dependency, so I patched it. Our CLI bundle should not include chalk at all now.

Would you mind doing another review, just to be extra safe?

[gcsecsey]

Thanks for following up on it and patching pi-tui @bcotrim!

With these changes, the installation and the CLI colors still work well. 👍