The ora npm package is a terminal spinner for Node.js applications. It provides an easy way to display a spinner in the command line interface (CLI) during the execution of long-running tasks, giving users a visual cue that processing is taking place. It is highly customizable and can be used to enhance the user experience in CLI tools.
Basic spinner
This code sample demonstrates how to create a basic spinner that starts with a message, runs for a specified duration, and then marks the operation as successful.
const ora = require('ora');
const spinner = ora('Loading unicorns').start();
setTimeout(() => {
spinner.succeed('Unicorns loaded');
}, 1000);Customize spinner color, text, and spinner
This code sample shows how to customize the spinner's appearance by setting the color, text, and spinner design. It also demonstrates how to update these properties while the spinner is running.
const ora = require('ora');
const spinner = ora({
text: 'Loading rainbows',
color: 'magenta',
spinner: 'moon'
}).start();
setTimeout(() => {
spinner.color = 'yellow';
spinner.text = 'Loading sun';
}, 1000);Control spinner success and failure
This code sample illustrates how to control the spinner to indicate success or failure of an operation. In this case, the spinner is stopped with a failure message.
const ora = require('ora');
const spinner = ora('Loading with great anticipation').start();
setTimeout(() => {
spinner.fail('Something went wrong');
}, 1000);cli-spinners provides a collection of spinners for use in the terminal, similar to ora, but it does not manage the spinner state or provide methods to start, succeed, or fail. It is more of a raw collection of spinner designs.
clui is a collection of Node.js command line UI components, which includes a spinner similar to ora. However, clui offers a broader set of UI components such as gauges, progress bars, and line charts, making it more versatile for building complex CLI interfaces.
log-update is a package that allows you to log by overwriting the previous output in the terminal. While it doesn't provide a built-in spinner, it can be used to create custom spinners or other dynamic terminal interfaces by manually controlling the output rendering.
Elegant terminal spinner
$ npm install ora
const ora = require('ora');
const spinner = ora('Loading unicorns').start();
setTimeout(() => {
spinner.color = 'yellow';
spinner.text = 'Loading rainbows';
}, 1000);
If a string is provided, it is treated as a shortcut for options.text.
Type: object
Type: string
Text to display after the spinner.
Type: string | () => string
Text or a function that returns text to display before the spinner. No prefix text will be displayed if set to an empty string.
Type: string | object
Default: 'dots' 
Name of one of the provided spinners. See example.js in this repo if you want to test out different spinners. On Windows, it will always use the line spinner as the Windows command-line doesn't have proper Unicode support.
Or an object like:
{
interval: 80, // Optional
frames: ['-', '+', '-']
}
Type: string
Default: 'cyan'
Values: 'black' | 'red' | 'green' | 'yellow' | 'blue' | 'magenta' | 'cyan' | 'white' | 'gray'
Color of the spinner.
Type: boolean
Default: true
Set to false to stop Ora from hiding the cursor.
Type: number
Default: 0
Indent the spinner with the given number of spaces.
Type: number
Default: Provided by the spinner or 100
Interval between each frame.
Spinners provide their own recommended interval, so you don't really need to specify this.
Type: stream.Writable
Default: process.stderr
Stream to write the output.
You could for example set this to process.stdout instead.
Type: boolean
Force enable/disable the spinner. If not specified, the spinner will be enabled if the stream is being run inside a TTY context (not spawned or piped) and/or not in a CI environment.
Note that {isEnabled: false} doesn't mean it won't output anything. It just means it won't output the spinner, colors, and other ansi escape codes. It will still log text.
Type: boolean
Default: false
Disable the spinner and all log text. All output is suppressed and isEnabled will be considered false.
Type: boolean
Default: true
Discard stdin input (except Ctrl+C) while running if it's TTY. This prevents the spinner from twitching on input, outputting broken lines on Enter key presses, and prevents buffering of input while the spinner is running.
This has no effect on Windows as there's no good way to implement discarding stdin properly there.
Start the spinner. Returns the instance. Set the current text if text is provided.
Stop and clear the spinner. Returns the instance.
Stop the spinner, change it to a green ✔ and persist the current text, or text if provided. Returns the instance. See the GIF below.
Stop the spinner, change it to a red ✖ and persist the current text, or text if provided. Returns the instance. See the GIF below.
Stop the spinner, change it to a yellow ⚠ and persist the current text, or text if provided. Returns the instance.
Stop the spinner, change it to a blue ℹ and persist the current text, or text if provided. Returns the instance.
A boolean of whether the instance is currently spinning.
Stop the spinner and change the symbol or text. Returns the instance. See the GIF below.
Type: object
Type: string
Default: ' '
Symbol to replace the spinner with.
Type: string
Default: Current 'text'
Text to be persisted after the symbol
Type: string
Default: Current prefixText
Text to be persisted before the symbol. No prefix text will be displayed if set to an empty string.
Clear the spinner. Returns the instance.
Manually render a new frame. Returns the instance.
Get a new frame.
Change the text after the spinner.
Change the text before the spinner. No prefix text will be displayed if set to an empty string.
Change the spinner color.
Change the spinner.
Change the spinner indent.
Starts a spinner for a promise. The spinner is stopped with .succeed() if the promise fulfills or with .fail() if it rejects. Returns the spinner instance.
Type: Promise
Use Chalk:
const ora = require('ora');
const chalk = require('chalk');
const spinner = ora(`Loading ${chalk.red('unicorns')}`).start();
JavaScript is single-threaded, so synchronous operations blocks the thread, including the spinner animation. Prefer asynchronous operations whenever possible.
FAQs
Elegant terminal spinner
We found that ora demonstrated a healthy version release cadence and project activity because the last version was released less than a year ago. It has 0 open source maintainers collaborating on the project.
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