chalkolors

A tiny and fast library for terminal output formatting with ANSI colors.

import ck from "chalkolors"

console.log(
  ck.green(`How are ${ck.italic(`you`)} doing?`)
)

• No dependencies.
• 1.6 times faster than colorette and nanocolors and 2.5 times faster than chalk on complex formatting, on par for simple calls.
• Extended underline styles (double, curly, dotted, dashed), overline and underline colors.
• Node.js v16+. Support for both CJS and ESM projects.
• TypeScript type declarations included.
• NO_COLOR friendly.

Install

npm install chalkolors

Usage

chalkolors provides an object which includes a variety of text coloring and formatting functions.

import ck from "chalkolors"

Colors

black, red, green, yellow, blue, magenta, cyan, white, gray and bright variants blackBright, redBright, greenBright, yellowBright, blueBright, magentaBright, cyanBright, whiteBright.

console.log(`I see a ${ck.red("red door")} and I want it painted ${ck.black("black")}`)

Background colors

bgBlack, bgRed, bgGreen, bgYellow, bgBlue, bgMagenta, bgCyan, bgWhite, bgGray and bright variants bgBlackBright, bgRedBright, bgGreenBright, bgYellowBright, bgBlueBright, bgMagentaBright, bgCyanBright, bgWhiteBright.

console.log(
  ck.bgBlack(
    ck.white(`Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a long-handled brush.`)
  )
)

Formatting

reset, bold, dim, italic, underline, overline, inverse, hidden, strikethrough.

for (let task of tasks) {
  console.log(`${ck.bold(task.name)} ${ck.dim(task.durationMs + "ms")}`)
}

Underline styles

underlineDouble, underlineCurly, underlineDotted, underlineDashed.

console.log(`This word is ${ck.underlineCurly("misspeled")}`)

These use the SGR 4:x sequences. Terminals without support for them may show a plain underline or no underline at all.

Underline colors

underlineBlack, underlineRed, underlineGreen, underlineYellow, underlineBlue, underlineMagenta, underlineCyan, underlineWhite, underlineGray and bright variants underlineRedBright, underlineGreenBright, underlineYellowBright, underlineBlueBright, underlineMagentaBright, underlineCyanBright, underlineWhiteBright.

Underline colors only change the color of the line, so combine them with an underline style:

console.log(ck.underlineRed(ck.underlineCurly("misspeled")))

Utilities

• isColorSupported — boolean, explicitly tells whether or not the colors or formatting appear on the screen

  import ck from "chalkolors"
  
  if (ck.isColorSupported) {
    console.log("Yay! This script can use colors and formatters")
  }

• createColors(enabled) — a function that returns a new API object with manually defined color support configuration

  import ck from "chalkolors"
  
  let { red, bgWhite } = ck.createColors(options.enableColors)

Color support is detected from the environment: NO_COLOR or --no-color disable colors; FORCE_COLOR, --color, Windows, a TTY (unless TERM=dumb) or CI enable them.

Replacing chalk

1. Replace package name in import:

   - import chalk from 'chalk'
   + import ck from 'chalkolors'

2. Replace variable:

   - chalk.red(text)
   + ck.red(text)

3. Replace chains to nested calls:

   - chalk.red.bold(text)
   + ck.red(ck.bold(text))

4. You can use colorize-template to replace chalk’s tagged template literal.

   + import { createColorize } from 'colorize-template'
   
   + let colorize = createColorize(ck)
   - chalk.red.bold`full {yellow ${"text"}}`
   + colorize`{red.bold full {yellow ${"text"}}}`

Benchmarks

Results from Node.js 24.21.0 on an Intel Core i9-10940X (Windows). Lower is better.

Complex formatting expression (nested calls):

$ node benchmarks/complex.mjs
  chalk v4        676 ns
  chalk v5        685 ns
  cli-color    15,470 ns
  ansi-colors   1,950 ns
  kleur           613 ns
  kleur/colors    526 ns
  colorette       434 ns
  nanocolors      441 ns
  yoctocolors     445 ns
+ chalkolors      269 ns

Simple API call:

$ node benchmarks/simple.mjs
  chalk v4       28.52 ns
  chalk v5       17.72 ns
  cli-color   1,810.00 ns
  ansi-colors   198.61 ns
  kleur          27.00 ns
  kleur/colors   20.66 ns
  colorette       4.81 ns
  nanocolors      5.14 ns
  yoctocolors     5.08 ns
+ chalkolors      5.07 ns

Coloring already colored large text:

$ node benchmarks/recursion.mjs
  chalk v4       63.77 µs
  chalk v5       63.70 µs
  cli-color      37.70 µs
  ansi-colors    35.34 µs
  kleur          33.34 µs
  kleur/colors   33.34 µs
  colorette      59.39 µs
  nanocolors     33.48 µs
  yoctocolors    41.97 µs
+ chalkolors     43.02 µs

Library loading time:

$ node benchmarks/loading.mjs
  chalk v4       1.91 µs
  chalk v5       3.17 µs
  cli-color      6.86 µs
  ansi-colors    1.16 µs
  kleur          1.10 µs
  kleur/colors   1.12 µs
  colorette      1.12 µs
  nanocolors     1.12 µs
  yoctocolors    5.87 µs
+ chalkolors     1.14 µs

Bundled size:

$ node benchmarks/size.mjs
  chalk v4       49.26 KB
  cli-color     138.27 KB
  ansi-colors    10.22 KB
  kleur           3.81 KB
  kleur/colors    3.06 KB
  colorette       6.04 KB
  nanocolors      5.75 KB
  yoctocolors     8.80 KB
+ chalkolors      6.29 KB

To run them yourself:

npm install
npm install --no-save chalk5@npm:chalk@5
node benchmarks/size.mjs
node benchmarks/loading.mjs
node benchmarks/simple.mjs
node benchmarks/complex.mjs
node benchmarks/recursion.mjs

Credits

• picocolors by @alexeyraspopov — chalkolors is a fork of picocolors and keeps its ISC license.
• yoctocolors by @sindresorhus — the underline colors come from yoctocolors.

License

ISC. The underline colors are derived from yoctocolors and are MIT licensed. See LICENSE.