>
chalk-advanced
Style terminal output with Chalk. Use when adding colors to CLI output, formatting log messages, building styled terminal UIs, or creating developer tools with colored output.
#chalk#cli#terminal#colors#formatting
terminal-skillsv1.0.0
Works with:claude-codeopenai-codexgemini-clicursor
Usage
$
✓ Installed chalk-advanced v1.0.0
Getting Started
- Install the skill using the command above
- Open your AI coding agent (Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, or Cursor)
- Reference the skill in your prompt
- The AI will use the skill's capabilities automatically
Example Prompts
- "Review the open pull requests and summarize what needs attention"
- "Generate a changelog from the last 20 commits on the main branch"
Documentation
Overview
Chalk styles terminal strings with colors, bold, underline, and backgrounds. ESM-only since v5. Chain styles fluently. Widely used in CLIs for status messages, errors, and formatted output.
Instructions
Step 1: Basic Styling
typescript
import chalk from 'chalk'
console.log(chalk.green('✓ Success'))
console.log(chalk.red.bold('✗ Error: file not found'))
console.log(chalk.yellow('⚠ Warning: deprecated API'))
console.log(chalk.blue.underline('https://example.com'))
console.log(chalk.gray(' (verbose details)'))
// Background colors
console.log(chalk.bgRed.white.bold(' ERROR ') + ' Something went wrong')
console.log(chalk.bgGreen.black.bold(' PASS ') + ' All tests passed')
Step 2: Composable Styles
typescript
// Define reusable styles
const styles = {
error: chalk.red.bold,
success: chalk.green,
warn: chalk.yellow,
info: chalk.blue,
dim: chalk.gray,
highlight: chalk.cyan.bold,
label: chalk.bgBlue.white.bold,
}
function log(level: keyof typeof styles, msg: string) {
const prefix = {
error: '✗', success: '✓', warn: '⚠', info: 'ℹ', dim: '·', highlight: '→',
}
console.log(`${styles[level](prefix[level] || '·')} ${msg}`)
}
log('success', 'Project created')
log('error', 'Build failed')
log('info', `Using ${styles.highlight('TypeScript')} template`)
Step 3: CLI Output Formatting
typescript
// Table-like output
function printStats(stats: Record<string, number>) {
const maxKey = Math.max(...Object.keys(stats).map(k => k.length))
for (const [key, value] of Object.entries(stats)) {
const label = chalk.gray(key.padEnd(maxKey))
const val = value > 0 ? chalk.green(value.toString()) : chalk.red(value.toString())
console.log(` ${label} ${val}`)
}
}
printStats({ 'Files changed': 12, 'Lines added': 847, 'Lines removed': 231, Warnings: 0, Errors: 0 })
Guidelines
- Chalk v5+ is ESM-only. Use
import chalk from 'chalk', not require. - Chalk respects
NO_COLORandFORCE_COLORenv vars automatically. - Chain methods:
chalk.red.bold.underline('text')— order doesn't matter. - Use template literals:
chalk`{red Error:} {bold ${message}}` - For complex terminal UIs, combine with ora (spinners) and cli-table3 (tables).
Information
- Version
- 1.0.0
- Author
- terminal-skills
- Category
- Development
- License
- Apache-2.0