use-colors

ANSI terminal styling library

A lightweight ANSI styling library for Node.js that supports chained styles, template literals, RGB colors, and automatic terminal color detection.

Installation

npm install use-colors

Usage

import colors from 'use-colors';

// basic colors
console.log(colors.red('Error message'));
console.log(colors.green('Success message'));
console.log(colors.yellow('Warning message'));
console.log(colors.blue('Information message'));

// style modifiers
console.log(colors.bold('Bold text'));
console.log(colors.underline('Underlined text'));
console.log(colors.italic('Italic text'));

// chained styles
console.log(colors.bold.red('Bold red text'));
console.log(colors.underline.blue('Underlined blue text'));
console.log(colors.inverse.yellow('Inverse yellow text'));

// bright colors
console.log(colors.redBright('Bright red'));
console.log(colors.greenBright('Bright green'));
console.log(colors.blueBright('Bright blue'));

// background colors
console.log(colors.bgRed.white('White text on red background'));
console.log(colors.bgGreen.black('Black text on green background'));
console.log(colors.bgBlue.white('White text on blue background'));

// nested styles
const user = colors.green('Alex');
console.log(colors.blue(`User ${user} logged in`));

// template literal
const name = 'Alex';
const score = 42;

console.log(colors.green`User ${name} logged in`);
console.log(colors.yellow`Score: ${score}`);
console.log(colors.red.bold`Error: ${'Connection failed'}`);

// custom colors

// RGB
console.log(colors.rgb(255, 0, 0)('Custom red'));
console.log(colors.rgb(0, 255, 0)('Custom green'));
console.log(colors.rgb(0, 128, 255)('Custom blue'));

// HEX
console.log(colors.hex('#ff5733')('HEX color example'));
console.log(colors.hex('#00ffcc')('Bright teal text'));
console.log(colors.hex('#f00')('Short hex red'));

// ANSI256
console.log(colors.ansi256(196)('Bright red'));
console.log(colors.ansi256(33)('Blue tone'));
console.log(colors.ansi256(82)('Green tone'));

// ANSI Utilities

// Strip ANSI codes
// Remove ANSI styling from text.
const text = colors.red('Hello');

console.log(colors.strip(text));
// Hello

// Detect ANSI codes
// Check if a string contains ANSI escape sequences.
const styled = colors.green('Hello');

console.log(colors.hasAnsi(styled));
// true

Configuration

You can control the color level manually.

import colors from 'use-colors';

colors.config({ level: 0 }); // disable colors

console.log(colors.red('No colors'));

Available levels:

Level	Description
0	No colors
1	ANSI16 colors
2	ANSI256 colors
3	Truecolor (24-bit)

Custom Instances

Create an isolated color instance.

import { createColors } from 'use-colors';

const c = createColors({ level: 3 });

console.log(c.blue('Custom instance'));

This is useful when building tools or libraries that need their own color configuration.

Supported ANSI Styles

Modifiers

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

Colors

• black
• red
• green
• yellow
• blue
• magenta
• cyan
• white
• gray
• redBright
• greenBright
• yellowBright
• blueBright
• magentaBright
• cyanBright
• whiteBright

Background Colors

• bgBlack
• bgRed
• bgGreen
• bgYellow
• bgBlue
• bgMagenta
• bgCyan
• bgWhite
• bgBlackBright
• bgRedBright
• bgGreenBright
• bgYellowBright
• bgBlueBright
• bgMagentaBright
• bgCyanBright
• bgWhiteBright

Automatic Color Detection

use-colors automatically detects the terminal's color capability and adjusts the output accordingly.

The library checks common environment variables and terminal settings to determine the supported color level.

Detection Order

Color support is determined using the following signals:

• NO_COLOR → disables colors
• FORCE_COLOR → forces colors
• COLORTERM=truecolor or COLORTERM=24bit → enables truecolor
• TERM=*-256color → enables ANSI256 colors
• otherwise → falls back to basic ANSI16 colors

Color Levels

Level	Description
0	No colors
1	ANSI16 colors
2	ANSI256 colors
3	Truecolor (24-bit)

Environment Examples

Disable colors:

NO_COLOR=1 node app.js

Force colors:

FORCE_COLOR=1 node app.js

Force truecolor terminals:

COLORTERM=truecolor node app.js