export LESS=-R to get color in less outputIt is super annoying that you only get a single pager executable and can’t even reliably know which one it is just by examination. So, it turns out, less has add the LESS environment variable in which you can put all the switch you want but cannot pass to the pager itself.
This fix is a life-saver when it comes to tools and scripts that need to detect the system pager and use it, but that you cannot be sure of being there. I actually hard-coded a check for less and added a -R only to learn soon after that LESS exists and allows the user to have all the control about what they want less to do.