diff --git a/doc/api/tty.md b/doc/api/tty.md
index 26761442a50865..061a26d0c8058c 100644
--- a/doc/api/tty.md
+++ b/doc/api/tty.md
@@ -162,8 +162,14 @@ may lie about what terminal is used.
 To enforce a specific behavior without relying on `process.env` it is possible
 to pass in an object with different settings.
 
-Use the `NODE_DISABLE_COLORS` environment variable to enforce this function to
-always return 1.
+To enforce a specific color support, use one of the below environment settings.
+This rule does not apply to Windows OS, CI environments, and some other rare
+cases. Only disabling color support with `NODE_DISABLE_COLORS` will always work.
+
+* 2 colors: `NODE_DISABLE_COLORS = 1`
+* 16 colors: `TERM = 'console'`
+* 256 colors: `TMUX = 1`
+* 16,777,216 colors: `TERM_PROGRAM = 'Hyper'`
 
 ### writeStream.getWindowSize()
 <!-- YAML