yanse

yanse

Yanse (颜色) - Fast terminal color styling

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

OSS Credit

Inspired by chalk and ansi-colors.

Development

Setup

• Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/constructive-io/dev-utils.git

• Install dependencies:

cd dev-utils
pnpm install
pnpm build

• Test the package of interest:

cd packages/<packagename>
pnpm test:watch

Credits

🛠 Built by the Constructive team — creators of modular Postgres tooling for secure, composable backends. If you like our work, contribute on GitHub.

Disclaimer

AS DESCRIBED IN THE LICENSES, THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", AT YOUR OWN RISK, AND WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND.

No developer or entity involved in creating this software will be liable for any claims or damages whatsoever associated with your use, inability to use, or your interaction with other users of the code, including any direct, indirect, incidental, special, exemplary, punitive or consequential damages, or loss of profits, cryptocurrencies, tokens, or anything else of value.