What is OSC 8?
OSC 8 is the escape-sequence convention commonly used by modern terminal software to represent clickable hyperlinks in terminal output.
Background
FAQ
Short answers for maintainers, terminal nerds, and suspicious users.
Is this a formal standard?
No. This project is a de facto convention for ecosystem adoption. It borrows the clarity of RFC-style writing without claiming ECMA, ISO, or IETF authority.
Why not rely only on auto-detection?
Auto-detection helps, but it cannot express user preference, accessibility needs, screen-reader issues, auditability, or environments where support exists but is hard to detect reliably.
Why define both disable and force-enable?
The disable switch gives users a global kill switch. The force-enable switch helps in terminals or pass-through setups where OSC 8 support exists but tool heuristics are conservative.
Why does NO_HYPERLINKS win over FORCE_HYPERLINKS?
The convention favors predictable user protection and explicit suppression when both variables are present, similar to the general expectation that a negative safety-style override should be easier to reason about.
Does this apply to terminal emulators too?
Mostly the normative behavior is for emitters. Terminal-side software matters for compatibility, so the guidance asks emulators, multiplexers, and pagers to preserve, strip, or document behavior consistently.
What problems does this solve?
It gives users and maintainers a common vocabulary for security review, accessibility, plain-text output, debugging, and support conversations across tools.
How should projects announce support?
Add a short note to CLI help, docs, or changelogs stating that
hyperlink behavior honors NO_HYPERLINKS and FORCE_HYPERLINKS, and specify any local override flags.