refactor: replace chalk with smaller alternative by webdiscus · Pull Request #5983 · Unitech/pm2

webdiscus · 2025-05-11T16:49:04Z

Q	A
Bug fix?	no
New feature?	no
BC breaks?	no
Deprecations?	no
Tests pass?	yes
Fixed tickets
License	MIT
Doc PR	https://github.com/pm2-hive/pm2-hive.github.io/pulls

Hello,

I'm the author of Ansis, a smaller and faster alternative to Chalk.
Ansis is a dual package that supports both CommonJS and ESM, while Chalk v5 is ESM only.

Ansis is Chalk-compatible, so migrating requires minimal code changes.
For example:

- const chalk = require('chalk');
+ const chalk = require('ansis');

...

- chalk.bold.grey('text'); // uncommon UK spelling
+ chalk.bold.gray('text'); // Ansis uses the common standard spelling

This PR intentionally keeps the variable name chalk unchanged (i.e., chalk.red() instead of ansis.red()) to demonstrate that only minimal changes are needed, typically just the import and occasional spelling updates like grey -> gray.

If you'd prefer a full rename to, e.g., ansis.red(), I'm happy to update the variable name throughout the codebase as well.

CLAassistant · 2025-05-11T16:49:10Z

All committers have signed the CLA.

Unitech · 2025-05-12T15:24:54Z

Great!

cristianst · 2025-05-13T12:52:22Z

Hi @webdiscus , quick heads up: we just encounter one issue in our deployment process after the last pm2 release. It seems like ansis is not being installed correctly as dependency?

Rolling back to: npm install -g pm2@6.0.5 solves the issue. Could you verify? Happy to contribute further here.

webdiscus · 2025-05-13T13:05:26Z

Hello @cristianst,

probably the issue is in the "old" package-lock.json.
I will check it.

Fixes Unitech#5984 Fixes Unitech#5983 (comment) Also adds integrity hashes. Created by running the following command: rm bun.lock package-lock.json && npm install --package-lock-only && bun install --lockfile-only

webdiscus · 2025-05-13T22:46:19Z

@cristianst, I can't reproduce the issue with v6.0.6.

Here is the repo test-pm2-deploy-docker to test pm2 deploy into a docker container.

Note

The exact same PM2 version (6.0.6) is installed both locally and in the Docker container.

Info

macOS: 15.5
node -v -> v22.15.0
pm2 -v -> 6.0.6

Which version of Node.js is currently installed?
PM2 6.0.6 requires Node.js 16 or late, package.json:

"engines": {
    "node": ">=16.0.0"
 },

Do you use NVM to manage Node.js versions?
PM2 must be installed globally for each Node.js version used with NVM.

cristianst · 2025-05-14T07:35:38Z

Thanks for verifying, @webdiscus. I'm afraid we're still using an older version of Node (10.x). I know, it's pretty outdated… we're already working on it.

That said, despite the old Node version, pm2@6.0.5 (installed globally) was working fine for us until pm2@6.0.6 was released. Your initial guess seems to be spot on: I noticed that the package-lock.json is missing.

In fact, there's already a PR addressing this: #5985. Pretty sure this might solve the issue.

webdiscus · 2025-05-14T22:21:26Z

@cristianst, @jeremyschlatter, @Unitech

Breakdown of the error `Error: Cannot find module 'ansis'`

This indicates that Ansis is either not installed properly or cannot be loaded in Node.js v10 due to compatibility issues.

Since PM2 v6 officially requires Node.js >= 16, the latest version 6.0.6 migrated from outdated chalk v3 to ansis.
Ansis requires Node.js >= 14 (which is still lower than PM2's own minimum requirement).
However, PM2 v6 can still run unofficially on Node.js >= 10, which leads to this error for users running Node.js v10 - v12, because Ansis does not support such old versions.

To address this, I've created a special version of Ansis: 4.0.0-node10, which is compatible with Node.js 10+.

TODO: fix PM2 dependency:

"dependencies": {
 ..
- "ansis": "4.0.0",
+ "ansis": "4.0.0-node10",
 ..
}

jeremyschlatter · 2025-05-14T23:09:25Z

I was skeptical that this was the cause, but indeed it is. A simple way to verify is to compare the output of these commands:

docker run --rm -it --entrypoint bash node:10 -c 'npm install -g pm2; pm2'
docker run --rm -it --entrypoint bash node:16 -c 'npm install -g pm2; pm2'

$ docker run --rm -it --entrypoint bash node:10 -c 'npm install -g pm2; pm2 --version'
/usr/local/bin/pm2-runtime -> /usr/local/lib/node_modules/pm2/bin/pm2-runtime
/usr/local/bin/pm2-dev -> /usr/local/lib/node_modules/pm2/bin/pm2-dev
/usr/local/bin/pm2 -> /usr/local/lib/node_modules/pm2/bin/pm2
/usr/local/bin/pm2-docker -> /usr/local/lib/node_modules/pm2/bin/pm2-docker
npm WARN notsup Unsupported engine for pm2@6.0.6: wanted: {"node":">=16.0.0"} (current: {"node":"10.24.1","npm":"6.14.12"})
npm WARN notsup Not compatible with your version of node/npm: pm2@6.0.6
npm WARN notsup Unsupported engine for ansis@4.0.0: wanted: {"node":">=14"} (current: {"node":"10.24.1","npm":"6.14.12"})
npm WARN notsup Not compatible with your version of node/npm: ansis@4.0.0
npm WARN notsup Unsupported engine for proxy-agent@6.4.0: wanted: {"node":">= 14"} (current: {"node":"10.24.1","npm":"6.14.12"})
npm WARN notsup Not compatible with your version of node/npm: proxy-agent@6.4.0
npm WARN notsup Unsupported engine for agent-base@7.1.3: wanted: {"node":">= 14"} (current: {"node":"10.24.1","npm":"6.14.12"})
npm WARN notsup Not compatible with your version of node/npm: agent-base@7.1.3
npm WARN notsup Unsupported engine for http-proxy-agent@7.0.2: wanted: {"node":">= 14"} (current: {"node":"10.24.1","npm":"6.14.12"})
npm WARN notsup Not compatible with your version of node/npm: http-proxy-agent@7.0.2
npm WARN notsup Unsupported engine for socks-proxy-agent@8.0.5: wanted: {"node":">= 14"} (current: {"node":"10.24.1","npm":"6.14.12"})
npm WARN notsup Not compatible with your version of node/npm: socks-proxy-agent@8.0.5
npm WARN notsup Unsupported engine for https-proxy-agent@7.0.6: wanted: {"node":">= 14"} (current: {"node":"10.24.1","npm":"6.14.12"})
npm WARN notsup Not compatible with your version of node/npm: https-proxy-agent@7.0.6
npm WARN notsup Unsupported engine for pac-proxy-agent@7.2.0: wanted: {"node":">= 14"} (current: {"node":"10.24.1","npm":"6.14.12"})
npm WARN notsup Not compatible with your version of node/npm: pac-proxy-agent@7.2.0
npm WARN notsup Unsupported engine for lru-cache@7.18.3: wanted: {"node":">=12"} (current: {"node":"10.24.1","npm":"6.14.12"})
npm WARN notsup Not compatible with your version of node/npm: lru-cache@7.18.3
npm WARN notsup Unsupported engine for pac-resolver@7.0.1: wanted: {"node":">= 14"} (current: {"node":"10.24.1","npm":"6.14.12"})
npm WARN notsup Not compatible with your version of node/npm: pac-resolver@7.0.1
npm WARN notsup Unsupported engine for get-uri@6.0.4: wanted: {"node":">= 14"} (current: {"node":"10.24.1","npm":"6.14.12"})
npm WARN notsup Not compatible with your version of node/npm: get-uri@6.0.4
npm WARN notsup Unsupported engine for data-uri-to-buffer@6.0.2: wanted: {"node":">= 14"} (current: {"node":"10.24.1","npm":"6.14.12"})
npm WARN notsup Not compatible with your version of node/npm: data-uri-to-buffer@6.0.2
npm WARN notsup Unsupported engine for degenerator@5.0.1: wanted: {"node":">= 14"} (current: {"node":"10.24.1","npm":"6.14.12"})
npm WARN notsup Not compatible with your version of node/npm: degenerator@5.0.1
npm WARN notsup Unsupported engine for ip-address@9.0.5: wanted: {"node":">= 12"} (current: {"node":"10.24.1","npm":"6.14.12"})
npm WARN notsup Not compatible with your version of node/npm: ip-address@9.0.5
npm WARN optional SKIPPING OPTIONAL DEPENDENCY: fsevents@~2.3.2 (node_modules/pm2/node_modules/chokidar/node_modules/fsevents):
npm WARN notsup SKIPPING OPTIONAL DEPENDENCY: Unsupported platform for fsevents@2.3.3: wanted {"os":"darwin","arch":"any"} (current: {"os":"linux","arch":"arm64"})

+ pm2@6.0.6
added 135 packages from 169 contributors in 5.639s
internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:638
    throw err;
    ^

Error: Cannot find module 'ansis'
    at Function.Module._resolveFilename (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:636:15)
    at Function.Module._load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:562:25)
    at Module.require (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:692:17)
    at require (internal/modules/cjs/helpers.js:25:18)
    at Object.<anonymous> (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/pm2/constants.js:10:14)
    at Module._compile (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:778:30)
    at Object.Module._extensions..js (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:789:10)
    at Module.load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:653:32)
    at tryModuleLoad (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:593:12)
    at Function.Module._load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:585:3)

$ docker run --rm -it --entrypoint bash node:16 -c 'npm install -g pm2; pm2'

added 135 packages, and audited 136 packages in 2s

13 packages are looking for funding
  run `npm fund` for details

found 0 vulnerabilities
npm notice
npm notice New major version of npm available! 8.19.4 -> 11.3.0
npm notice Changelog: https://github.com/npm/cli/releases/tag/v11.3.0
npm notice Run npm install -g npm@11.3.0 to update!
npm notice

                        -------------

__/\\\\\\\\\\\\\____/\\\\____________/\\\\____/\\\\\\\\\_____
 _\/\\\/////////\\\_\/\\\\\\________/\\\\\\__/\\\///////\\\___
  _\/\\\_______\/\\\_\/\\\//\\\____/\\\//\\\_\///______\//\\\__
   _\/\\\\\\\\\\\\\/__\/\\\\///\\\/\\\/_\/\\\___________/\\\/___
    _\/\\\/////////____\/\\\__\///\\\/___\/\\\________/\\\//_____
     _\/\\\_____________\/\\\____\///_____\/\\\_____/\\\//________
      _\/\\\_____________\/\\\_____________\/\\\___/\\\/___________
       _\/\\\_____________\/\\\_____________\/\\\__/\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\_
        _\///______________\///______________\///__\///////////////__


                          Runtime Edition

        PM2 is a Production Process Manager for Node.js applications
                     with a built-in Load Balancer.

                Start and Daemonize any application:
                $ pm2 start app.js

                Load Balance 4 instances of api.js:
                $ pm2 start api.js -i 4

                Monitor in production:
                $ pm2 monitor

                Make pm2 auto-boot at server restart:
                $ pm2 startup

                To go further checkout:
                http://pm2.io/


                        -------------

usage: pm2 [options] <command>

pm2 -h, --help             all available commands and options
pm2 examples               display pm2 usage examples
pm2 <command> -h           help on a specific command

Access pm2 files in ~/.pm2

You can see among the warnings in the first command:

npm WARN notsup Unsupported engine for ansis@4.0.0: wanted: {"node":">=14"} (current: {"node":"10.24.1","npm":"6.14.12"})
npm WARN notsup Not compatible with your version of node/npm: ansis@4.0.0

Presumably this is the cause of the regression, as chalk@3.0.0 only node >=8:

	"engines": {
		"node": ">=8"
	},

Though you can also see in the warnings that a bunch of other stuff is listed as unsupported on Node 10, too. Namely proxy-agent, https-proxy-agent, pac-proxy-agent, lru-cache, socks-proxy-agent, agent-base, http-proxy-agent, get-uri, pac-resolver, data-uri-to-buffer, degenerator, and ip-address.

see365 · 2025-05-15T09:29:39Z

The minor version upgrade from 6.0.5 to 6.0.6 should not require a Node.js version change

refactor: replace chalk with smaller alternative

ffb3ec4

webdiscus marked this pull request as ready for review May 11, 2025 17:02

Unitech merged commit 064a4a8 into Unitech:development May 13, 2025
3 checks passed

jeremyschlatter mentioned this pull request May 13, 2025

chore: add integrity hashes to lockfiles #5985

Closed

webdiscus mentioned this pull request May 15, 2025

fix: cannot find module ansis on Node.js < 14 #5986

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refactor: replace chalk with smaller alternative#5983

refactor: replace chalk with smaller alternative#5983
Unitech merged 1 commit intoUnitech:developmentfrom
webdiscus:replace-chalk-dev

webdiscus commented May 11, 2025

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webdiscus commented May 14, 2025

Breakdown of the error Error: Cannot find module 'ansis'

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Breakdown of the error `Error: Cannot find module 'ansis'`