# chalk/chalk

🖍 Terminal string styling done right

Repository: https://github.com/chalk/chalk
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/chalk
Language: JavaScript
License: MIT
License Family: permissive
Topics: ansi-escape-codes, javascript, chalk, ansi, color, cli, terminal, console, terminal-emulators, commandline, strip-ansi
Last push: 2026-07-26T14:51:04+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 96/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 94, release rhythm 95, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 4779, "days_push": 38, "days_rel": 38, "gap_med": 22, "n_releases_24m": 6}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 23308, forks 1026 (observed 2026-08-28T04:11:34.655453+00:00)

## What it is
Chalk is a zero-dependency JavaScript library for styling terminal string output with colors, backgrounds, and text modifiers via a chainable API. It auto-detects color support and supports 256-color and truecolor output.

## Use cases
- colorize CLI output in Node.js
- add colored warnings and errors to console logs
- style terminal text with ANSI colors
- create themed colored log messages
- detect terminal color support
- strip ANSI codes from strings

## When to choose
- you need reliable, widely-adopted terminal styling in JavaScript
- you want nested and chainable color styles with truecolor support
- you need a dependency-free, performant coloring library

## When to avoid
- you want a minimal, smaller alternative (consider yoctocolors)
- you need ESM-incompatible tooling without pinning to Chalk 4
- you are styling non-terminal output like HTML or GUIs

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: stable
- function: cli, developer-tools, logging
- domain: developer-tools, frontend
- platform: cli, cross-platform
- tags: ansi-escape-codes, terminal-colors, string-styling, truecolor, esm, command-line, nodejs

## Member repositories
- chalk/chalk (main) score 96

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:11:34.655453+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T16:56:45.168872+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/chalk/chalk (fetched 2026-08-28T04:11:34.655453+00:00, sha 47a0df25b953)
  - registry_npm: https://registry.npmjs.org/chalk (fetched 2026-08-29T07:54:45.299813+00:00, sha c8cc9f146afe)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.