@inquirer/external-editor

A Node.js module to edit a string with the user's preferred text editor using $VISUAL or $EDITOR.

[!NOTE] This package is a replacement for the unmaintained external-editor. It includes security fixes.

Installation

npm install @inquirer/external-editor

yarn add @inquirer/external-editor

Usage

A simple example using the edit function

import { edit } from '@inquirer/external-editor';

const data = edit('\n\n# Please write your text above');
console.log(data);

Example relying on the class construct

import {
  ExternalEditor,
  CreateFileError,
  ReadFileError,
  RemoveFileError,
  LaunchEditorError,
} from '@inquirer/external-editor';

try {
  const editor = new ExternalEditor();
  const text = editor.run(); // the text is also available in editor.text

  if (editor.lastExitStatus !== 0) {
    console.log('The editor exited with a non-zero code');
  }

  // Do things with the text
  editor.cleanup();
} catch (err) {
  if (err instanceof CreateFileError) {
    console.log('Failed to create the temporary file');
  } else if (err instanceof ReadFileError) {
    console.log('Failed to read the temporary file');
  } else if (err instanceof LaunchEditorError) {
    console.log('Failed to launch your editor');
  } else if (err instanceof RemoveFileError) {
    console.log('Failed to remove the temporary file');
  } else {
    throw err;
  }
}

API

Convenience Functions

• edit(text, config)
  • text (string) Optional Defaults to empty string
  • config (Config) Optional Options for temporary file creation
  • Returns (string) The contents of the file
  • Could throw CreateFileError, ReadFileError, or LaunchEditorError, or RemoveFileError
• editAsync(text, callback, config)
  • text (string) Optional Defaults to empty string
  • callback (function (error?, text?))
    • error could be of type CreateFileError, ReadFileError, LaunchEditorError, or RemoveFileError
    • text (string) The contents of the file
  • config (Config) Optional Options for temporary file creation

Errors

• CreateFileError Error thrown if the temporary file could not be created.
• ReadFileError Error thrown if the temporary file could not be read.
• RemoveFileError Error thrown if the temporary file could not be removed during cleanup.
• LaunchEditorError Error thrown if the editor could not be launched.

External Editor Public Methods

• new ExternalEditor(text, config)
  • text (string) Optional Defaults to empty string
  • config (Config) Optional Options for temporary file creation
  • Could throw CreateFileError
• run() Launches the editor.
  • Returns (string) The contents of the file
  • Could throw LaunchEditorError or ReadFileError
• runAsync(callback) Launches the editor in an async way
  • callback (function (error?, text?))
    • error could be of type ReadFileError or LaunchEditorError
    • text (string) The contents of the file
• cleanup() Removes the temporary file.
  • Could throw RemoveFileError

External Editor Public Properties

• text (string) readonly The text in the temporary file.
• editor.bin (string) The editor determined from the environment.
• editor.args (array) Default arguments for the bin
• tempFile (string) Path to temporary file. Can be changed, but be careful as the temporary file probably already exists and would need be removed manually.
• lastExitStatus (number) The last exit code emitted from the editor.

Config Options

• prefix (string) Optional A prefix for the file name.
• postfix (string) Optional A postfix for the file name. Useful if you want to provide an extension.
• mode (number) Optional Which mode to create the file with. e.g. 644
• dir (string) Optional Which path to store the file.

Why Synchronous?

Everything is synchronous to make sure the editor has complete control of the stdin and stdout. Testing has shown async launching of the editor can lead to issues when using readline or other packages which try to read from stdin or write to stdout. Seeing as this will be used in an interactive CLI environment, I made the decision to force the package to be synchronous. If you know a reliable way to force all stdin and stdout to be limited only to the child_process, please submit a PR.

If async is really needed, you can use editAsync or runAsync. If you are using readline or have anything else listening to the stdin or you write to stdout, you will most likely have problem, so make sure to remove any other listeners on stdin, stdout, or stderr.

Demo

License

Copyright (c) 2025 Simon Boudrias (twitter: @vaxilart) Licensed under the MIT license.