🌈 shellcolorize

shellcolorize is a lightweight Python library for adding color and style to terminal output using ANSI codes. Zero dependencies, no configuration — just import and use.

✨ Features

• 🎨 Full ANSI palette — 8 standard + 8 bright text colors, same for backgrounds.
• ✍️ Text styles — bold, dim, italic, underline, blink, reverse, strikethrough.
• 🛠 colorize() helper — applies styles and resets automatically, no manual RESET needed.
• 🔇 Smart color detection — outputs plain text when piped to a file or when NO_COLOR is set.
• 🔗 Open Source — MIT License.

📥 Installation

pip install shellcolorize

🛠 Usage

Using colorize() (recommended)

colorize(text, *styles) applies any combination of colors and styles and resets automatically. It also returns plain text when the output is not a TTY or when the NO_COLOR env var is set.

from shellcolorize import Color, colorize

print(colorize("This is red", Color.RED))
print(colorize("Bold and underlined", Color.BOLD, Color.UNDERLINE))
print(colorize("White on blue background", Color.BG_BLUE, Color.WHITE))
print(colorize("Bright green, bold", Color.BRIGHT_GREEN, Color.BOLD))

Using Color attributes directly

For inline use in f-strings. Remember to close with Color.RESET.

from shellcolorize import Color

print(f"{Color.RED}This is red{Color.RESET}")
print(f"{Color.BG_YELLOW}{Color.BLACK}Black on yellow{Color.RESET}")
print(f"{Color.BOLD}{Color.CYAN}Bold cyan{Color.RESET}")

🎨 Available Colors

Standard text colors

Background colors

Text styles

🔇 Color detection

colorize() automatically outputs plain text (no ANSI codes) in two situations:

• The output is not a TTY — e.g. redirected to a file or piped to another command.
• The NO_COLOR environment variable is set (any value), following the no-color.org convention.

# Plain text — no color codes in the file
python script.py > output.txt

# Plain text — respects NO_COLOR
NO_COLOR=1 python script.py

Direct use of Color attributes (f-strings) always emits ANSI codes regardless of environment.

📝 License

MIT — see LICENSE.

💬 Feedback

Open an issue or reach out via GitHub.

🌐 Connect