#1732·onefetch

Colorful errors

Author: Sk7Str1p3Created Apr 9, 2026Updated May 27, 2026
Labelsenhancement

Summary

Implement colored error and panic reports

Motivation

As a follow-up to #1634, which added colour to the CLI interface, we should implement something similar for errors and panics. I think this would make them easier to read and more user-friendly.

I came up with 3 options of implementing this: 1). Simply replace anyhow with color-eyre

  • pros:
    • easy to drop-in replace anyhow
  • cons:
    • bring some odd dependencies (e.g. tracing, backtrace)
    • not that flexible, can be confusing if .context() called many times
  1. Add eyre and implement custom error report
  • pros:
    • easy to drop-in replace anyhow
    • customisable
  • cons:
    • reports are not so detailed, requires many extension traits to get detailed report
    • can be confusing if error has many sources
  1. Use miette
  • pros:
    • really comprehensive and beatiful error reports
    • derive macros for error types
  • cons:
    • probably overkill
    • 2MB built with --release, really big crate