Coming from chalk

roundel is a chalk alternative you adopt by changing one import. roundel/chalk implements chalk 6's API itself, over roundel's own emitter and output policy, and chalk's own test suite is the grade.

Migrate from chalk in one import

- import chalk from 'chalk';
+ import chalk from 'roundel/chalk';

The chain (chalk.red.bold.underline(s)), rgb / hex / ansi256, chalk.level, new Chalk({ level }), chalkStderr and supportsColor stay as they are. It is ESM with a default condition, so require('roundel/chalk') works too.

Is roundel compatible with chalk?

Graded, not claimed. chalk's own suite, vendored at 6.0.0 and unmodified apart from the import specifier, runs against roundel/chalk beside a control that runs it against real chalk:

From Compatibility, which npm run compat:page generates from the oracle's last run; that page is the authority.

What differs, by design: the level is per façade (chalk.level = 0 silences roundel/chalk and nothing else), the tagged template literal chalk removed in 5 is not brought back, and chalk's per-terminal-program allow-list is not reproduced — a program on one of those terminals asks for colour with FORCE_COLOR or --color.

What you gain over chalk

chalk gives you red. roundel's tokens give you error, hint, command and flag, and one output policy decides — once, for every package in the family — whether they style:

• Agents and pipes get plain text. Through a pipe nobody asked to colour, under NO_COLOR, or with --json, every token returns its input unchanged. --json is the one output the colour level never enters: structured text carries no escapes.
• One answer for the whole program. outputMode() returns tty, pipe, json, accessible or ci from the runtime you pass it, so a spinner, a prompt and the help cannot disagree about the terminal the way chalk and ora can.
• A theme that is checked. fly() refuses a hex token below 4.5:1 contrast against the declared ground, at every colour level, so an unreadable theme fails in CI.

roundel/chalk is the door, and the tokens are where those properties live: move a file at a time, or never.

When to switch from chalk

• Your CLI is run by agents or in CI, and escape codes in captured output are a bug.
• You want the colours to mean something (error, not red) and change together.

The full package, its subpaths and its policy are on roundel.