A Node.js utility to show, hide, or toggle the terminal cursor in CLI applications.
cli-cursor is a Node.js library that allows developers to programmatically show, hide, or toggle the terminal cursor in command-line applications. It solves the problem of managing cursor visibility cleanly, such as hiding the cursor during animations or interactive prompts and ensuring it's restored when the app exits.
Node.js developers building CLI tools, terminal-based applications, or interactive command-line interfaces that require control over cursor visibility.
Developers choose cli-cursor for its simplicity, reliability, and automatic cursor restoration, which prevents leaving the terminal in a broken state if the process crashes or exits unexpectedly.
Toggle the CLI cursor
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The README shows straightforward methods like .hide() and .toggle(force), making it easy to integrate without complex configuration or learning curve.
It leverages restore-cursor to ensure the cursor is shown again on process exit, preventing the terminal from staying in a broken state after crashes or unexpected exits.
Supports specifying any writable stream, defaulting to process.stderr, allowing for customized output handling in diverse terminal environments.
With a minimal codebase and single responsibility, it adds negligible overhead and is easy to understand, maintain, and debug.
Only handles cursor visibility; developers needing cursor movement, color changes, or other terminal controls must pair it with additional libraries like ansi-escapes.
Relies on restore-cursor for graceful exit handling, which adds a dependency and could introduce issues if that module has bugs or version incompatibilities.
The README provides basic usage but lacks examples for advanced scenarios, error handling, or integration with async operations, leaving developers to figure out edge cases.