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Add colour to defaults in argparse help #141679
Description
Feature or enhancement
Proposal:
argparse help is in colour in Python 3.14:
The defaults are also in the same plaintext as the main help, but some other CLIs use another colour.
Typer defaults are light grey:
Composer defaults are yellow:
For argparse, I suggest having "(default: " and ")" in grey, as they're not so important (and always the same). And the default value itself in (non-bold) yellow, to mirror the (bold) yellow of the label, where the default is sort of slotting into. For example, "pretty" is the default format, and the other choices are also in yellow:
Has this already been discussed elsewhere?
This is a minor feature, which does not need previous discussion elsewhere
Links to previous discussion of this feature:
No response
Activity
serhiy-storchaka commentedon Nov 18, 2025
Would not using too much colors distract and make it hard to read?
Some programs that use
argparseinclude "(default: ...)" with literal description in the argument help. Some programs use%(default)sin the argument help. Now they will be different from the generated ones.gh-141679: Add colour to defaults in `argparse` help (#141680)
alexprengere commentedon Nov 23, 2025
I think this is a great addition!
As someone who use
%(default)sa lot to describe options, I would be glad to have similar colors applied when interpolating such variables. I can open another issue to that effect, and probably work on a PR, if this seems like a good idea.pythongh-141679: Add colour to defaults in `argparse` help (python#14…
pythongh-141679: Add colour to defaults in `argparse` help (python#14…