feat(colors-to-util.styleText): handle migration

[brunocroh]

Description

This issue tracks the migration from the colors package to Node.js's built-in util.styleText API. The goal is to reduce external dependencies by leveraging Node.js's native terminal styling capabilities.

Migration Scope

Compatible Features:

• Basic colors (red, green, blue, yellow, etc.)
• Bright colors (redBright, greenBright, etc.)
• Background colors (bgRed, bgGreen, etc.)
• Text modifiers (bold, dim, italic, underline, strikethrough, etc.)
• Style chaining via array syntax
• Environment variable support (NO_COLOR, NODE_DISABLE_COLORS, FORCE_COLOR)

Non-Compatible Features:

• extras (rainbow, zebra, america, trap, random)
• string substitution (console.log(colors.green('Hello %s'), name))
• Custom themes (colors.setTheme({error: 'red'}))

Benefits

1. Zero Dependencies: Eliminates need for external colors package
2. Better Performance: No additional bundle size or installation overhead
3. Native Support: Uses Node.js built-in APIs
4. Environment Awareness: Automatic respect for color-related environment variables

Examples

Suite of examples that demonstrate how the codemod will work. These can also serve as the base test suite.

Case 1: Basic Color Usage

Before:

const colors = require('colors')

console.log('Error message'.red);

After:

const { styleText } = require('node:util');

console.log(styleText('red', 'Error message'));

Case 2: Basic safe colors usage

Before:

const colors = require('colors/safe')

console.log(colors.green('Success message'));

After:

const { styleText } = require('node:util');

console.log(styleText('green', 'Success message'));

Case 3: Chained Styles

Before:

import colors from 'colors'

console.log('Success message'.green.bold);

After:

import { styleText } from 'node:util';

console.log(styleText(['green', 'bold'], 'Success message'));

Case 4: Chained Safe Styles

Before:

import colors from 'colors/safe'

console.log(colors.green.bold('Success message'));

After:

import { styleText } from 'node:util';

console.log(styleText(['green', 'bold'], 'Success message'));

Case 5: Inline String Concatenation

Before:

const colors = require('colors')

const name = 'World';
console.log('Hello, ' + name.green + '!');
console.log('Status: ' + 'OK'.green.bold + ' - All systems operational');

After:

const { styleText } = require('node:util');

const name = 'World';
console.log('Hello, ' + styleText('green', name) + '!');
console.log('Status: ' + styleText(['green', 'bold'], 'OK') + ' - All systems operational');

Case 6: Template Literals with Colors

Before:

const colors = require('colors')

const user = 'Alice';
const action = 'logged in';
console.log(`${'[INFO]'.blue} User ${user.green} ${action.yellow}`);

After:

const { styleText } = require('node:util');

const user = 'Alice';
const action = 'logged in';
console.log(`${styleText('blue', '[INFO]')} User ${styleText('green', user)} ${styleText('yellow', action)}`);

Additional note

If the codemod detect un-migratable apis we should warn it and advice the user to take a manual look at the code.

https://github.com/nodejs/userland-migrations/blob/main/utils/src/ast-grep/package-json.ts may need to be extended to support dependency removal

REFS

• Colors Package
• Node.js util.styleText Documentation

[AugustinMauroy]

WOW super spec bruno