bug: make standard color and verbosity options work through the application launcher

[codeforester]

Goal

make standard color and verbosity options work through the application launcher.

Background and verified evidence

Review date: 2026-09-17. Reviewed commit: 38042cbf23b9380c626aae6c9fe168f97096c1cc. Parent: #214.

Follow-up to #450: mode forwarding and logging threshold fixes landed, but base_app_apply_standard_options maps both auto and always to the same boolean. __base_bash_libs_std_init_colors__ then always disables ANSI output when stderr is not a TTY. An initialized public CLI/app model parsed with --color always and base_std_print_error produces no escape bytes when captured. always cannot force color as its advertised mode implies.

Scope and acceptance criteria

• Distinguish auto/always/never at the renderer rather than only in published policy globals.
• Specify the interaction between explicit always, NO_COLOR, non-TTY stderr, and the compatible bare launcher color flag.
• Test actual captured and PTY output through direct, generated and packaged execution, retaining quiet/verbose behavior.

Validation

Create an initialized model with base_app_add_standard_options, parse/apply each color mode, capture base_std_print_error bytes with NO_COLOR unset and set, and run app/launcher/full gates.

Non-goals

No unrelated API expansion or automatic release publication. Preserve immutable published assets and unrelated consumer files.

Project fields

• Status: Ready
• Priority: P2
• Area: CLI
• Initiative: Adoption Polish
• Size: S
• Milestone: v2.2.0
• Target date: unset; no delivery date has been committed.
• Type: Bug

Agent assignment

Assignee: codeforester. This is review/backlog intake; implementation has not started.

Original issue description (historical evidence)

Goal

Honor the behavior advertised by generated applications' standard option help.

Background

Parent: #214. Identified in the 2026-09-11 design, engineering, and adoption review at de1589c803591ac41a16cca33da4726bb96e15fc.

base_init consumes bare --color as a wrapper flag, while base_app_add_standard_options declares --color <MODE> for the app. bin/base-bash examples/reference-apps/ops-cli/bin/app --color never status returns 2 because never becomes positional and prevents subcommand selection. Separately, a standard generated app invoked via the repository launcher with status --quiet still emits an INFO framework diagnostic: apply-standard-options publishes globals but the generated flow never applies the advertised log policy. --verbose and color rendering need the same end-to-end check.

Scope

Choose a backward-compatible wrapper/application ownership rule for color and make the generated/reference applications apply standard logging/color policy.

Acceptance Criteria

• Record how legacy bare wrapper --color remains compatible or is explicitly deprecated; do not silently reinterpret a stable invocation.
• App --color never/always/auto and --color=MODE survive forwarding with equivalent results.
• Generated --quiet suppresses informational diagnostics; --verbose enables the intended diagnostics; invalid/conflicting modes return 2.
• Cover direct supported launcher, generated shebang, and packaged consumer execution, including stdout/stderr and -- boundaries.

Validation

Run the reproduced ops-cli command and a standard scaffold through the exact repository launcher. Assert logs as well as result globals. Run launcher, app, reference-app BATS and full validation.

Non-Goals

No breaking wrapper flag reinterpretation without a compatibility decision. No changes to application data output under --quiet.

Project Fields

• Status: Triage
• Priority: P2
• Area: CLI
• Initiative: Adoption Polish
• Size: M
• Milestone: v2.2.0
• Target date: unset; no delivery date has been committed.

Agent Assignment

• Assignee: codeforester
• Decision required before implementation; no agent is currently implementing this issue.

[codeforester]

Implemented and merged as PR #464.

The standard launcher now forwards --color MODE to the application contract, preserves legacy wrapper handling for bare --color, applies quiet/verbose logger levels and color modes consistently, and documents the behavior. Focused reference-app and app-library tests passed; the complete hosted matrix passed (quality, Bash compatibility, release/provenance, Ubuntu, macOS, Beacon downstream, and branch policy).

Merged commit: 339a340.