Comprehensive ANSI escape codes for terminal control, cursor manipulation, and screen formatting

@visulima/ansi

Comprehensive ANSI escape codes for terminal control. Take full control of your terminal output with cursor positioning, screen clearing, hyperlinks, images, and much more—all through simple, composable functions.

Key Features

Cursor Control

Position cursor anywhere on screen
Move cursor in any direction
Show, hide, and style cursor
Save and restore cursor position

Screen Manipulation

Clear screen or parts of it
Alternative screen buffer support
Scroll regions up and down
Erase lines and characters

Advanced Terminal Features

Clickable hyperlinks in terminal
Display images (iTerm2 support)
Mouse event tracking
Terminal mode management

Window and Title Control

Set window and icon titles
Window operations (minimize, maximize, etc.)
Report window state and position
Status reporting

Utility Functions

Strip ANSI codes from strings
tmux passthrough support
Terminal capability queries
Cross-platform compatibility

Quick Start

Install the package:

npm install @visulima/ansi

Control the cursor:

import { cursorUp, cursorLeft, cursorTo } from "@visulima/ansi";

// Move cursor up 2 rows and to the left
process.stdout.write(cursorUp(2) + cursorLeft);
// => '\u001B[2A\u001B[1000D'

// Move cursor to column 10, row 5
process.stdout.write(cursorTo(10, 5));

Clear the screen:

import { clearScreen, eraseDown } from "@visulima/ansi";

// Clear entire screen
process.stdout.write(clearScreen);

// Clear from cursor to end of screen
process.stdout.write(eraseDown);

Use Cases

Build Interactive CLI Applications

Create dynamic terminal UIs with precise cursor control:

import { cursorTo, eraseLine, cursorHide, cursorShow } from "@visulima/ansi";

function updateProgress(percent: number) {
  process.stdout.write(cursorHide);
  process.stdout.write(cursorTo(0));
  process.stdout.write(eraseLine);
  process.stdout.write(`Progress: [${"=".repeat(percent / 2)}${" ".repeat(50 - percent / 2)}] ${percent}%`);

  if (percent === 100) {
    process.stdout.write("\n");
    process.stdout.write(cursorShow);
  }
}

// Simulate progress
for (let i = 0; i <= 100; i += 10) {
  updateProgress(i);
  await new Promise(resolve => setTimeout(resolve, 200));
}

Create Clickable Terminal Links

Add hyperlinks that work in modern terminals:

import { hyperlink } from "@visulima/ansi";

const link = hyperlink("https://github.com/visulima", "Visit Visulima on GitHub");
console.log(link);
// Displays: Visit Visulima on GitHub (clickable in supported terminals)

Display Images in Terminal

Show images directly in iTerm2:

import { image } from "@visulima/ansi";
import { readFileSync } from "fs";

const imageData = readFileSync("logo.png");
process.stdout.write(image(imageData, {
  width: "50%",
  height: "auto"
}));

Clean ANSI Codes from Strings

Strip ANSI codes for logging or processing:

import { strip } from "@visulima/ansi";
import { cursorUp, cursorLeft } from "@visulima/ansi";

const withAnsi = `Hello ${cursorUp(2)}${cursorLeft} World`;
const cleaned = strip(withAnsi);

console.log(cleaned); // "Hello  World" (no ANSI codes)

Next Steps

Installation

Learn about installation and import methods

Usage Guide

Explore ANSI codes organized by category

API Reference

Complete API documentation for all functions

Browser and Server Support

This package is designed for Node.js terminal applications:

Node.js: ≥22.13 ≤25.x (full support)
Browsers: Not applicable (terminal-specific functionality)
Deno/Bun: Compatible with terminal-supporting runtimes

Requires a terminal that supports ANSI escape codes (most modern terminals).

Introduction