Global Options

These options are available for all commands:

--dry-run, -n - Show what would be done without making any changes
--verbose, -v - Show detailed progress and debugging information
--quiet, -q - Suppress non-error output
--strict, -s - Treat warnings as errors
--pedantic, -p - Enable additional HTML style and structure checks (see validate command)
--color <mode> - Control color output: always, auto, never, or reverse
--version, -V - Print version information
--help, -h - Show help information

Examples

# Preview what deploy would do without making changes
                ssi --dry-run deploy site/ output/
                
                # Use short form
                ssi -n deploy site/ output/
                
                # Combine multiple global options
                ssi --dry-run --verbose deploy site/ output/
                
                # Use reverse colors for light terminal backgrounds
                ssi --color reverse help per-page-tokens

Color Modes

The --color option controls when and how colors are displayed:

auto (default) - Use colors when output is a terminal
always - Always use colors, even when output is piped
never - Never use colors
reverse - For light terminal themes - uses blue instead of cyan

For light terminal themes, use --color=reverse.

Dry-Run Mode

When using --dry-run or -n, SSI shows what actions would be performed without making any changes to the file system. This is useful for:

Previewing deployments before executing them
Testing configuration changes
Learning what SSI does without risk
Debugging build issues

Output Format

Dry-run mode produces output that clearly indicates no changes are being made:

🔍 DRY RUN MODE - No files will be modified

Actions that would be performed are shown with “Would” prefixes:

🔍 Would create directory: output/
🔍 Would write file: output/index.html
🔍 Would copy: assets/style.css -> output/style.css
🔍 Would create symlink: production -> deploy.abc123

What Dry-Run Checks

Even in dry-run mode, SSI still:

Validates configuration files
Checks for missing source files
Reports permission errors
Enforces security constraints
Shows all warnings and errors

This ensures you can catch problems before running the actual command.

Examples

# Preview what deploy would do
                ssi --dry-run deploy site/ output/
                
                # Preview new site creation
                ssi --dry-run new my-website
                
                # Preview atomic deployment
                ssi --dry-run atomic site/ production