Hacktoberfest 2026: the issues maintainers tagged for October, open and beginner-friendly. Browse Hacktoberfest issues

require('supports-color') will always fail, supports-color version 9+ for node

Open
#912 0 comments 28 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

Nobody has claimed this yet.

Assessment

Difficulty
2/5
Estimated time
1-3 hours
Newbie friendliness
35/100
Issue type
Bug
Clarity
Mostly clear
Activity status
Stale
Tech stack
javascript, node.js
Domain
backend, devtools

Research direction

Start by reading src/node.js around the linked line and reproduce the ERR_REQUIRE_ESM failure with supports-color version 9 or newer. Check how the dependency is declared and how the Node entry point loads it. Done means the Node path no longer fails when supports-color is installed at that version, with the relevant behavior covered by an existing or added test.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

https://github.com/chalk/supports-color/releases/tag/v9.0.0

supports-color moved to ESM so require() always fails.
Just add a breakpoint/log here to confirm.

Error [ERR_REQUIRE_ESM]: require() of ES Module /home/node_modules/supports-color/index.js from /home/node_modules/debug/src/node.js not supported.
Instead change the require of index.js in /home/node_modules/debug/src/node.js to a dynamic import() which is available in all CommonJS modules.
    at Object.<anonymous> (/home/node_modules/debug/src/node.js:32:24)
    at Object.<anonymous> (/home/node_modules/debug/src/index.js:9:19)
    at Object.<anonymous> (/home/src/x.js:7:33)
    at Object.<anonymous> (/home/src/x.js:4:18)
    at async Promise.all (index 0) {
  code: 'ERR_REQUIRE_ESM'
}

Work around is "supports-color": "^8.1.1" when adding supports-color as a dependency.

Dominant language
JavaScript
Stars
11.5k
Forks
992
PR merge metrics
No merged PRs in 30d

Contributor guide

No contributing guide indexed for this repository

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

More from debug-js/debug

All issues in debug-js/debug

Similar issues

More JavaScript issues

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.