whatisgithub

What is prettycolors?

giginet/prettycolors — explained in plain English

Analysis updated 2026-08-06 · repo last pushed 2020-08-05

SwiftAudience · developerComplexity · 2/5DormantSetup · easy

In one sentence

PrettyColors is a Swift library that adds colors, bold, and underline styling to terminal text using ANSI escape codes, making command-line tool output more readable and visually distinct.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((repo))
    What it does
      Colorize terminal text
      Bold and underline
      256-color support
    Tech stack
      Swift
      ANSI escape codes
      ECMA Standard 48
    Use cases
      CLI error logging
      Colored warnings
      Success messages
    Platforms
      macOS
      iOS
      Linux
      watchOS and tvOS
    Integration
      Carthage
      CocoaPods
      Swift Package Manager

Code map

Detail Auto

An interactive map of this repo's files and how they connect — its source is parsed live in your browser. Click Visualize to build it.

filefunction / class

What do people build with it?

USE CASE 1

Color-code log output in a Swift CLI tool, red for errors, yellow for warnings, green for success.

USE CASE 2

Add bold or underline styling to important messages your command-line app prints to the terminal.

USE CASE 3

Use 256-color mode to pick from a wide palette for detailed, color-coded terminal output.

What is it built with?

SwiftANSI escape codes

How does it compare?

giginet/prettycolors0xsmw/pixelcopaiduckman/claudeusage_latest_may2026
Stars0
LanguageSwiftSwiftSwift
Last pushed2020-08-052026-07-24
MaintenanceDormantActive
Setup difficultyeasyeasyeasy
Complexity2/52/52/5
Audiencedeveloperdesignervibe coder

Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.

How do you get it running?

Difficulty · easy Time to first run · 5min

Swift package that integrates with Carthage, CocoaPods, or Swift Package Manager, straightforward if you already use those tools.

So what is it?

PrettyColors is a Swift library that makes terminal text colorful and styled. It lets you add colors, bold formatting, and underlines to strings your app prints to the command line, so your CLI tool's output stands out instead of being plain white-on-black. Under the hood, it works by generating ANSI escape codes, those are special invisible character sequences that terminals interpret as instructions to change text appearance. The project conforms to the ECMA Standard 48, which is the official spec for these codes. You tell it something like "make this text red and bold" and it wraps your string with the right codes so the terminal renders it correctly. Anyone building a command-line tool in Swift would find this useful. If you're writing a script that logs errors in red, warnings in yellow, and success messages in green, this handles the formatting for you. It also supports 256-color mode, so you can pick from a wider palette than just the basic eight colors. The library works across Apple platforms, macOS, iOS, watchOS, and tvOS, as well as Linux. Notable tradeoffs: it's specifically a Swift package, so it only applies if you're working in that language. It integrates with the common Swift dependency managers (Carthage, CocoaPods, and Swift Package Manager), so adding it to a project is straightforward if you're already using those tools. The README is brief, with most of the usage examples living in the test files rather than in the documentation itself.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1
I'm building a Swift command-line tool and want to print errors in red, warnings in yellow, and success messages in green using PrettyColors. Show me how to wrap my strings with the right styling.
Prompt 2
Help me add PrettyColors to my Swift project using Swift Package Manager so I can start colorizing my terminal output.
Prompt 3
Using PrettyColors in Swift, how do I format a string with 256-color mode so I can pick a specific color beyond the basic eight?
Prompt 4
I want to make a specific word inside a longer string bold and underlined in my Swift CLI output using PrettyColors, how do I do that?

Frequently asked questions

What is prettycolors?

PrettyColors is a Swift library that adds colors, bold, and underline styling to terminal text using ANSI escape codes, making command-line tool output more readable and visually distinct.

What language is prettycolors written in?

Mainly Swift. The stack also includes Swift, ANSI escape codes.

Is prettycolors actively maintained?

Dormant — no commits in 2+ years (last push 2020-08-05).

How hard is prettycolors to set up?

Setup difficulty is rated easy, with roughly 5min to a first successful run.

Who is prettycolors for?

Mainly developer.

Open on GitHub → Ask about another repo

This repo across BitVibe Labs

Verify against the repo before relying on details.