/**
 * The one place bytes reach the terminal, like less's output.c.
 *
 * less never writes to the tty as it goes: every putchr appends to an
 * 8K obuf (output.c:117) and only flush() hands it over, at the few
 * points where the user is about to be kept waiting — cmd_exec before
 * a command runs (command.c:128), the prompts that read a key, and
 * term_deinit. Everything a command emits therefore lands in ONE
 * write, and the intermediate states are never drawn.
 *
 * Node's process.stdout.write on a tty is the opposite: synchronous
 * and unbuffered, one syscall per call, each one rendered. Writing
 * directly meant a single arrow key reached the terminal as five
 * separate writes — clear, "ESC", backspaces, "[", "B" — and the
 * terminal drew every one of them. A trackpad fling delivers hundreds
 * of those: the prompt flickers and the escape sequence is visible as
 * it forms. The bytes were right the whole time, which is why every
 * byte-level corpus passed; only the write BOUNDARIES were wrong.
 */
/**
 * Appends to the output buffer, like less's putstr/putchr.
 *
 * A full buffer flushes itself, as less's putchr does — that bounds the
 * memory and is the only flush the caller does not choose.
 */
export declare function putstr(text: string): void;
/**
 * Hands the buffer to the terminal, like less's flush().
 *
 * Call before anything that makes the user wait — reading a key,
 * running a command, leaving the pager. Cheap when empty, so an
 * over-eager call costs nothing but a branch; a MISSING one is what
 * hurts, since output then sits until the buffer fills.
 */
export declare function flush(): void;
/** Drops anything unwritten, for a teardown that must not emit. */
export declare function discardOutput(): void;
/** What is waiting to go out, for tests. */
export declare const pendingOutput: () => string;