yanse

Fast and lightweight terminal color styling library with a chalk-like API. Yanse (颜色, yánsè) means "color" in Chinese.

Why? We got tired of chalk's ESM-only errors and needed control over our dependencies. This utility is too simple to justify depending on chalk and wrestling with module: true.

Features

• Fast & Lightweight - Zero dependencies, optimized for performance
• Chalk-like API - Drop-in replacement for chalk with familiar syntax
• TypeScript Support - Fully typed with comprehensive type definitions
• Nested Colors - Proper handling of nested color styles without bugs
• Chained Styles - Chain multiple colors and modifiers
• Toggle Support - Easily enable/disable colors
• Themes & Aliases - Create custom color themes and aliases

Install

npm install yanse

Usage

Basic Colors

import yanse, { red, green, blue, yellow, cyan } from 'yanse';

console.log(red('Error message'));
console.log(green('Success message'));
console.log(blue('Info message'));
console.log(yellow('Warning message'));
console.log(cyan('Debug message'));

Chained Colors

import yanse from 'yanse';

console.log(yanse.bold.red('Bold red text'));
console.log(yanse.bold.yellow.italic('Bold yellow italic text'));
console.log(yanse.green.bold.underline('Bold green underlined text'));

Nested Colors

import { yellow, red, cyan } from 'yanse';

console.log(yellow(`foo ${red.bold('red')} bar ${cyan('cyan')} baz`));

Logger Example

Perfect for building loggers with colored output:

import yanse, { cyan, yellow, red, green, bold } from 'yanse';

type LogLevel = 'info' | 'warn' | 'error' | 'debug' | 'success';

const levelColors: Record<LogLevel, typeof cyan> = {
  info: cyan,
  warn: yellow,
  error: red,
  debug: yanse.gray,
  success: green
};

class Logger {
  constructor(private scope: string) {}

  log(level: LogLevel, message: string) {
    const tag = bold(`[${this.scope}]`);
    const color = levelColors[level];
    const prefix = color(`${level.toUpperCase()}:`);

    console.log(`${tag} ${prefix} ${message}`);
  }
}

const logger = new Logger('MyApp');
logger.log('info', 'Application started');
logger.log('success', 'Connection established');
logger.log('warn', 'Deprecated API used');
logger.log('error', 'Failed to connect');

Available Styles

Colors

• black
• red
• green
• yellow
• blue
• magenta
• cyan
• white
• gray / grey

Background Colors

• bgBlack
• bgRed
• bgGreen
• bgYellow
• bgBlue
• bgMagenta
• bgCyan
• bgWhite

Bright Colors

• blackBright, redBright, greenBright, yellowBright
• blueBright, magentaBright, cyanBright, whiteBright

Bright Background Colors

• bgBlackBright, bgRedBright, bgGreenBright, bgYellowBright
• bgBlueBright, bgMagentaBright, bgCyanBright, bgWhiteBright

Style Modifiers

• bold
• dim
• italic
• underline
• inverse
• hidden
• strikethrough
• reset

Toggle Color Support

import yanse from 'yanse';

// Disable colors
yanse.enabled = false;
console.log(yanse.red('This will not be colored'));

// Re-enable colors
yanse.enabled = true;
console.log(yanse.red('This will be red'));

Strip ANSI Codes

import yanse from 'yanse';

const styled = yanse.blue.bold('Hello World');
console.log(yanse.unstyle(styled)); // 'Hello World'
console.log(yanse.stripColor(styled)); // 'Hello World' (alias)

Themes & Aliases

Create Aliases

import yanse from 'yanse';

yanse.alias('primary', yanse.blue);
yanse.alias('secondary', yanse.gray);

console.log(yanse.primary('Primary text'));
console.log(yanse.secondary('Secondary text'));

Create Themes

import yanse from 'yanse';

yanse.theme({
  danger: yanse.red,
  success: yanse.green,
  warning: yanse.yellow,
  info: yanse.cyan,
  primary: yanse.blue,
  muted: yanse.dim.gray
});

console.log(yanse.danger('Error occurred!'));
console.log(yanse.success('Operation successful!'));
console.log(yanse.warning('Be careful!'));

Create Custom Instances

import { create } from 'yanse';

const customYanse = create();
customYanse.enabled = false; // This instance has colors disabled

console.log(customYanse.red('Not colored'));

API

Properties

• enabled: boolean - Enable/disable color output
• visible: boolean - Make output visible/invisible
• ansiRegex: RegExp - Regex for matching ANSI codes

Methods

• hasColor(str: string): boolean - Check if string contains ANSI codes
• hasAnsi(str: string): boolean - Alias for hasColor
• unstyle(str: string): string - Remove ANSI codes from string
• stripColor(str: string): string - Alias for unstyle
• alias(name: string, color: YanseColor): void - Create color alias
• theme(colors: Record<string, YanseColor>): void - Create color theme
• create(): YanseColors - Create new yanse instance

Why Yanse?

• Zero Dependencies - No external dependencies, minimal bundle size
• Fast - Optimized for performance
• Correct Nested Colors - Unlike some libraries, yanse correctly handles nested color styles
• TypeScript First - Written in TypeScript with full type support
• Familiar API - Drop-in replacement for chalk

Developing

When first cloning the repo:

pnpm install
pnpm build

Testing

pnpm test

Credits

Inspired by chalk and ansi-colors.