[colors.js](https://github.com/Marak/colors.js) used to be the most popular string styling module, but it has serious deficiencies like extending `String.prototype` which causes all kinds of [problems](https://github.com/yeoman/yo/issues/68). Although there are other ones, they either do too much or not enough.
Chain [styles](#styles) and call the last one as a method with a string argument. Order doesn't matter, and later styles take precedent in case of a conflict. This simply means that `Chalk.red.yellow.green` is equivalent to `Chalk.green`.
Multiple arguments will be separated by space.
### chalk.enabled
Color support is automatically detected, but you can override it by setting the `enabled` property. You should however only do this in your own code as it applies globally to all chalk consumers.
If you need to change this in a reusable module create a new instance:
```js
var ctx = new chalk.constructor({enabled: false});
```
### chalk.supportsColor
Detect whether the terminal [supports color](https://github.com/chalk/supports-color). Used internally and handled for you, but exposed for convenience.
Can be overridden by the user with the flags `--color` and `--no-color`. For situations where using `--color` is not possible, add an environment variable `FORCE_COLOR` with any value to force color. Trumps `--no-color`.
### chalk.styles
Exposes the styles as [ANSI escape codes](https://github.com/chalk/ansi-styles).
Generally not useful, but you might need just the `.open` or `.close` escape code if you're mixing externally styled strings with your own.
Check whether a string [has color](https://github.com/chalk/has-ansi).
### chalk.stripColor(string)
[Strip color](https://github.com/chalk/strip-ansi) from a string.
Can be useful in combination with `.supportsColor` to strip color on externally styled text when it's not supported.
Example:
```js
var chalk = require('chalk');
var styledString = getText();
if (!chalk.supportsColor) {
styledString = chalk.stripColor(styledString);
}
```
## Styles
### Modifiers
- `reset`
- `bold`
- `dim`
- `italic` *(not widely supported)*
- `underline`
- `inverse`
- `hidden`
- `strikethrough` *(not widely supported)*
### Colors
- `black`
- `red`
- `green`
- `yellow`
- `blue` *(on Windows the bright version is used as normal blue is illegible)*
- `magenta`
- `cyan`
- `white`
- `gray`
### Background colors
- `bgBlack`
- `bgRed`
- `bgGreen`
- `bgYellow`
- `bgBlue`
- `bgMagenta`
- `bgCyan`
- `bgWhite`
## 256-colors
Chalk does not support anything other than the base eight colors, which guarantees it will work on all terminals and systems. Some terminals, specifically `xterm` compliant ones, will support the full range of 8-bit colors. For this the lower level [ansi-256-colors](https://github.com/jbnicolai/ansi-256-colors) package can be used.
## Windows
If you're on Windows, do yourself a favor and use [`cmder`](http://bliker.github.io/cmder/) instead of `cmd.exe`.
## Related
- [chalk-cli](https://github.com/chalk/chalk-cli) - CLI for this module
- [ansi-styles](https://github.com/chalk/ansi-styles/) - ANSI escape codes for styling strings in the terminal
- [supports-color](https://github.com/chalk/supports-color/) - Detect whether a terminal supports color