Error handler for CLI applications.

Features

• 🖍️ Pretty colors, icons and header
• 💣 Error class-specific and custom handling
• 🚒 Graceful exit
• ⛑️ Normalize invalid errors
• 🔕 Log verbosity: message, stack, nested errors, properties
• 🚨 Custom exit code and log function
• 💥 Exception-safe

Screenshot

Example

General

#!/usr/bin/env node
import handleCliError from 'handle-cli-error'

const cliMain = () => {
  try {
    // ...
  } catch (error) {
    handleCliError(error) // Logs `error` then exit the process
  }
}

cliMain()

Error class-specific

handleCliError(error, {
  classes: {
    InputError: { exitCode: 1, stack: false },
    DatabaseError: { exitCode: 2, stack: false },
    default: { exitCode: 3 },
  },
})

Install

npm install handle-cli-error

This package works in Node.js >=18.18.0.

This is an ES module. It must be loaded using an import or import() statement, not require(). If TypeScript is used, it must be configured to output ES modules, not CommonJS.

API

handleCliError(error, options?)

error any
options Options?
Return value: undefined

Logs error on the console (stderr) then exits the process.

This never throws. Invalid errors are silently normalized.

Options

🚨 exitCode

Type: integer
Default: 1

Process exit code.

We recommend values between 1 and 124 because the following exit codes have some special meaning:

• 0: success
• 125: invalid options
• 126 to 255: used by shells like Bash

📕 stack

Type: boolean
Default: true

Whether to log the error's stack trace.

🪏 cause

Type: boolean
Default: true

Whether to show nested errors, i.e. error.cause and error.errors.

📢 props

Type: boolean
Default: true

Whether to log the error's additional properties.

🔕 silent

Type: boolean
Default: false

Exits the process without logging anything on the console.

🖍️ colors

Type: boolean
Default: true in terminals, false otherwise

Whether to colorize the error's message, stack trace and additional properties.

Quoted strings in the error's message are printed in bold (for "..." and '...') and in italic (for `...`).

❌ icon

Type: string
Default: 'cross'

Icon prepended to the error's name. The available values are listed here. Can be disabled by passing an empty string.

💄 header

Type: string
Default: 'red bold'

Color/style of the error's icon and name. The available values are listed here. Several styles can be specified by using spaces. Can be disabled by passing an empty string.

🚒 timeout

Type: integer (in milliseconds)
Default: 5000 (5 seconds)

The process exits gracefully: it waits for any ongoing tasks (callbacks, promises, etc.) to complete, up to a specific timeout.

Special values:

• 0: Exits right away, without waiting for ongoing tasks
• Number.POSITIVE_INFINITY: Waits for ongoing tasks forever, without timing out

📜 log

Type: (string) => void
Default: console.error

Function used to print the error message.

💣 classes

Type: object
Default: {}

Specify different options per error class. The object:

• Keys are either the error.name, or "default" (used if no error.name matches)
• Values are options objects

🪛 custom

Type: string | symbol
Default: beautiful

Name of a method to map the output. That method must take the output as a string argument, transform it then return it.

class ExampleError extends Error {
  beautiful(output) {
    return output.replaceAll('secret', '***')
  }
}

const error = new ExampleError('Unknown value: secret')
handleCliError(error) // 'Unknown value: ***'

Related projects

• modern-errors: Handle errors in a simple, stable, consistent way
• modern-errors-cli: Handle errors in CLI modules
• modern-errors-beautiful: Prettify errors messages and stacks
• error-custom-class: Create one error class
• error-class-utils: Utilities to properly create error classes
• error-serializer: Convert errors to/from plain objects
• normalize-exception: Normalize exceptions/errors
• is-error-instance: Check if a value is an Error instance
• merge-error-cause: Merge an error with its cause
• set-error-class: Properly update an error's class
• set-error-message: Properly update an error's message
• wrap-error-message: Properly wrap an error's message
• set-error-props: Properly update an error's properties
• set-error-stack: Properly update an error's stack
• error-cause-polyfill: Polyfill error.cause
• beautiful-error: Prettify error messages and stacks
• log-process-errors: Show some ❤ to Node.js process errors
• error-http-response: Create HTTP error responses
• winston-error-format: Log errors with Winston

Credits

The logo background was created by dgim-studio.

Support

For any question, don't hesitate to submit an issue on GitHub.

Everyone is welcome regardless of personal background. We enforce a Code of conduct in order to promote a positive and inclusive environment.

Contributing

This project was made with ❤️. The simplest way to give back is by starring and sharing it online.

If the documentation is unclear or has a typo, please click on the page's Edit button (pencil icon) and suggest a correction.

If you would like to help us fix a bug or add a new feature, please check our guidelines. Pull requests are welcome!