The tiniest and the fastest library for terminal output formatting with ANSI colors.

import pc from "picocolors"

console.log(
  pc.green(`How are ${pc.italic(`you`)} doing?`)
)

• No dependencies.
• 14 times smaller and 2 times faster than chalk.
• Used by popular tools like PostCSS, SVGO, Stylelint, and Browserslist.
• Node.js v6+ & browsers support. Support for both CJS and ESM projects.
• TypeScript type declarations included.
• NO_COLOR friendly.

This is a fork of the original project with the following changes:

• Include native ESM output, which allows named imports #60.
• Add benchmarks for chalk 5 and yoctocolors #61.

With picocolors we are trying to draw attention to the node_modules size problem and promote performance-first culture.

Credits go to the following projects:

• Nanocolors by @ai
• Colorette by @jorgebucaran
• Kleur by @lukeed
• Colors.js by @Marak
• Chalk by @sindresorhus

The space in node_modules including sub-dependencies:

$ node ./benchmarks/size.js
  [email protected]  43 kB
  [email protected] 101 kB
  cli-color   796 kB
  ansi-colors  27 kB
  kleur        20 kB
  colorette    17 kB
  nanocolors   15 kB
  yoctocolors   7 kB
+ picocolors    7 kB

Library loading time:

$ node ./benchmarks/loading.js
  chalk5         7.713 ms
  chalk4         5.372 ms
  cli-color     32.428 ms
  ansi-colors    1.420 ms
  kleur          2.345 ms
  kleur/colors   0.960 ms
  colorette      0.887 ms
  nanocolors     0.708 ms
  yoctocolors    0.679 ms
+ picocolors     0.388 ms

Benchmark for simple use case:

$ node ./benchmarks/simple.js
  chalk5         26,287,893 ops/sec
  chalk4         25,221,564 ops/sec
  cli-color       1,412,525 ops/sec
  ansi-colors     6,463,786 ops/sec
  kleur          26,363,857 ops/sec
  kleur/colors   52,166,754 ops/sec
  colorette      50,574,214 ops/sec
  nanocolors     51,646,373 ops/sec
  yoctocolors   195,458,649 ops/sec
+ picocolors     50,840,902 ops/sec

Benchmark for complex use cases:

$ node ./benchmarks/complex.js
  chalk5          1,178,597 ops/sec
  chalk4          1,215,094 ops/sec
  cli-color         152,419 ops/sec
  ansi-colors       558,016 ops/sec
  kleur           1,251,816 ops/sec
  kleur/colors    1,523,289 ops/sec
  colorette       1,813,436 ops/sec
  nanocolors      1,682,924 ops/sec
  yoctocolors     4,424,045 ops/sec
+ picocolors      2,747,818 ops/sec

Picocolors provides an object which includes a variety of text coloring and formatting functions

import pc from "picocolors"

The object includes following coloring functions: black, red, green, yellow, blue, magenta, cyan, white, gray.

console.log(`I see a ${pc.red("red door")} and I want it painted ${pc.black("black")}`)

The object also includes following background color modifier functions: bgBlack, bgRed, bgGreen, bgYellow, bgBlue, bgMagenta, bgCyan, bgWhite.

console.log(
  pc.bgBlack(
    pc.white(`Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a long-handled brush.`)
  )
)

Besides colors, the object includes following formatting functions: dim, bold, hidden, italic, underline, strikethrough, reset, inverse.

for (let task of tasks) {
  console.log(`${pc.bold(task.name)} ${pc.dim(task.durationMs + "ms")}`)
}

The library provides additional utilities to ensure the best results for the task:

• isColorSupported — boolean, explicitly tells whether or not the colors or formatting appear on the screen

  import pc from "picocolors"
  
  if (pc.isColorSupported) {
    console.log("Yay! This script can use colors and formatters")
  }

• createColors(enabled) — a function that returns a new API object with manually defined color support configuration

  import pc from "picocolors"
  
  let { red, bgWhite } = pc.createColors(options.enableColors)

1. Replace package name in import:

   - import chalk from 'chalk'
   + import pico from 'picocolors'

2. Replace variable:

   - chalk.red(text)
   + pico.red(text)

3. Replace chains to nested calls:

   - chalk.red.bold(text)
   + pico.red(pico.bold(text))

4. You can use colorize-template to replace chalk’s tagged template literal.

   + import { createColorize } from 'colorize-template'
   
   + let colorize = createColorize(pico)
   - chalk.red.bold`full {yellow ${"text"}}`
   + colorize`{red.bold full {yellow ${"text"}}}`