smart-console-pro 🧠

A drop-in replacement for Node.js console — with timestamps, caller info, color-coded levels, file logging, child loggers, and more.

✨ Features

| Feature | Description | | --------------------- | ------------------------------------------------ | | 🕐 Timestamps | [HH:MM:SS] prefix on every log | | 📍 Caller Info | Auto-detects filename:line from the call stack | | 🎨 Color-coded Levels | Each level has a distinct color | | 📁 File Logging | Optionally write plain logs to a .log file | | 👶 Child Loggers | Bind metadata (e.g., requestId) to logs | | 🚀 Production JSON | Auto JSON output when NODE_ENV=production | | 📦 Dual ESM/CJS | Works natively with import and require() | | 💙 TypeScript | Fully typed out-of-the-box (index.d.ts) | | 🔇 Silent Mode | Suppress all output — great for tests | | ⚙️ Configurable | configure() for runtime customization | | 🔌 Drop-in | global.console = require('smart-console-pro') | | 🪶 Zero dependencies | Uses only Node.js built-ins |

📦 Installation

npm install smart-console-pro

🚀 Quick Start

ESM (import)

import log from "smart-console-pro";
// or named exports:
// import { info, warn, success } from 'smart-console-pro';

log.info("Listening on port 3000");
log.success("User authenticated!");

CommonJS (require)

const console = require("smart-console-pro");

console.log("Server started");
console.error("Database connection failed");

Output:

[15:30:01]  * LOG     (server.js:3)    Server started
[15:30:01]  i INFO    (server.js:4)    Listening on port 3000
[15:30:01]  X ERROR   (server.js:6)    Database connection failed
[15:30:01]  + SUCCESS (server.js:8)    User authenticated!

👶 Child Loggers

You can create a child logger to automatically bind context (like a requestId or userId) to all logs produced by that logger.

import log from "smart-console-pro";

const reqLog = log.child({ requestId: "abc-123", userId: 42 });

reqLog.info("Processing request...");
// [15:30:01]  i INFO    (app.js:5)  Processing request...

reqLog.error("Validation failed");
// [15:30:01]  X ERROR   (app.js:8)  Validation failed

🚀 Production JSON Mode

When you deploy your app to production, you likely want structured logs for aggregators (like Datadog, CloudWatch, or ELK).

smart-console-pro automatically detects when NODE_ENV=production and switches from pretty colored output to machine-readable JSON lines.

# In your terminal
export NODE_ENV=production
node server.js

Output:

{"level":"info","ts":"2026-05-11T12:00:00.000Z","caller":"server.js:10","msg":"Server started"}
{"level":"error","ts":"2026-05-11T12:00:01.000Z","caller":"db.js:42","msg":"Query failed","meta":{"requestId":"abc-123"}}

Dev mode (default) remains pretty and colored.

⚙️ Configuration

const console = require("smart-console-pro");

console.configure({
    timestamp: true, // Show [HH:MM:SS] — default: true
    callerInfo: true, // Show (file.js:line) — default: true
    colors: true, // ANSI colors — default: true
    silent: false, // Suppress all output — default: false
    logFile: "./app.log", // Write to file — default: null (disabled)
});

Set NO_COLOR=1 environment variable to globally disable colors (follows no-color.org).

📁 File Logging

console.configure({ logFile: "./logs/app.log" });

console.info("This appears in terminal AND in app.log");
console.error("Errors too!");

// Gracefully close the stream before exit
console.close();

The log file contains plain text only (no ANSI codes).

⏱️ Timer

console.time("fetchData");

// ... async work ...

console.timeEnd("fetchData");
// [15:30:02]  i INFO    (app.js:10)    fetchData: 120ms

🌍 Global Override

Replace the built-in console everywhere with a single line:

global.console = require("smart-console-pro");

// All console.log, console.error, etc. in your entire app are now enhanced
console.log("I am now smart!");

🆚 Comparison

| Feature | smart-console-pro | Native console | winston / pino | | --------------------------- | ------------------- | ---------------- | ------------------- | | Setup required | None (Drop-in) | None | High (Boilerplate) | | Colors & Formatting | ✅ Built-in | ❌ No | ✅ Requires plugins | | Caller Info (File:Line) | ✅ Auto-detected | ❌ No | ⚠️ Complex to setup | | Child Loggers | ✅ Yes (.child()) | ❌ No | ✅ Yes | | Production JSON | ✅ Auto-detects | ❌ No | ✅ Yes | | Bundle Size / Deps | 0 dependencies | Built-in | Heavy |

📋 API Reference

| Method | Description | | -------------------- | ------------------------------- | | log(...args) | General log (white) | | info(...args) | Informational (cyan) | | warn(...args) | Warning (yellow) | | error(...args) | Error → stderr (red bold) | | debug(...args) | Debug (magenta) | | success(...args) | Success (green) | | child(meta) | Create bound sub-logger ✨ | | time(label) | Start a timer | | timeEnd(label) | End a timer and log elapsed ms | | configure(options) | Update configuration at runtime | | getConfig() | Get current config snapshot | | close() | Close file logger stream |

📄 License

MIT © Shakil Ahmad