jinks update --sync: --quiet's conflict-skipping crashes without a TTY, and the behavior is undocumented

[line-o]

Problem

jinks update --sync -y <abbrev> (v2.4.0) crashes in a non-interactive/headless shell as soon as it hits its first conflict-classified file:

? Conflicts detected. Resolve conflicts? (Y/n)
file:///.../node_modules/@teipublisher/jinks-cli/node_modules/@inquirer/core/dist/lib/create-prompt.js:67
            reject(new ExitPromptError(`User force closed the prompt with ${code} ${signal}`));
                   ^
ExitPromptError: User force closed the prompt with 0 null

-y/--confirm-breaking does not cover this prompt — per --help it only concerns breaking profile-version changes.

-q/--quiet (documented as "Do not print banner") turns out to also suppress this prompt — but by silently defaulting it to "yes, overwrite everything," not by skipping it. Verified with a live A/B test (same command, only -q added/removed, stdin closed to simulate a headless shell):

• Without -q: crashes as above, after already syncing the non-conflicting update-type files.
• With -q: completes with no prompt, but every conflict-type file (local content differs from both the last-recorded generated version and the newly generated one — the CLI's own signal that the file likely carries real developer customizations) gets overwritten right alongside the harmless ones, with no confirmation and nothing logged about what was clobbered.

So today, the interactive prompt (when it doesn't crash) is the only thing standing between a real local customization and a silent overwrite. In a headless/CI-style invocation — the exact context where nobody is watching the terminal to catch it — that protection currently either crashes the process or, if worked around with -q, silently disappears.

Requested feature

A non-interactive way to decline conflicts instead of only being able to crash or accept all:

• --skip-conflicts: sync the non-conflicting update files, leave every conflict-flagged file untouched, and report which files were skipped (path + source) so the caller can resolve them separately — e.g. the same table update/conflict classification already printed, but as the final summary instead of (or in addition to) the pre-sync preview.
• Optionally, a --dry-run / report-only mode that prints the update/conflict table without writing anything, so a script can inspect it before deciding how to proceed.

Either would let jinks update --sync be used safely from a script or CI job without risking silent data loss on files that already carry real customizations.

Environment

• jinks-cli 2.4.0 (installed via npm, @teipublisher/jinks-cli)
• Node.js 24.12.0
• Reproduced against a fresh eXist-db devcontainer (TEI Publisher 10 / jinks generator backend)

Happy to share the exact repro command/output privately if useful — trimmed identifying details (server URL, app name) from this report.

[line-o]

Correction to the report above.

I misread my own test output. Re-checked git status after the -q run against the actual source (src/lib/generator.js):

• --sync (lines 152-153) only ever collects type === 'update' messages into the sync list — conflict-type files are never included, -q or not.
• resolveConflicts() (the interactive prompt) is gated by if (!options.quiet) (lines 200-203) — with -q, it's simply never called.

So -q does not silently overwrite conflicting files — it silently leaves them untouched, which is actually the safe behavior. My "data loss risk" concern above was unfounded; sorry for the noise.

What's still real, revised ask:

1. The crash without -q is the actual bug: an unhandled ExitPromptError (from @inquirer/prompts, thrown when stdin has no TTY) instead of a graceful message. -q already does the right thing behaviorally (skip conflicts, report nothing further) — it's just an undocumented side effect of a flag whose help text says only "Do not print banner." Two independent, smaller fixes would cover it:
   • When a conflict prompt can't be shown non-interactively (no TTY), fall back to the same "skip and report" behavior -q already has, instead of throwing.
   • Document that --quiet also skips conflict resolution — or split it into its own explicit flag (e.g. --skip-conflicts) so choosing that behavior doesn't require suppressing the banner/log output too.
2. Separately: update output could name which conflicts were left unresolved after a --sync run completes (it prints the full update/conflict table up front, but nothing summarizing what's still pending once quiet mode skips resolution).

The original "auto-accept-all conflicts" framing in the issue title/body no longer applies — happy to narrow the title if that's useful, or feel free to close this in favor of a more targeted issue if you'd rather start fresh.