ReferenceError: colors and logger warning are not defined when using --websocket flag

[HarshVz]

Bug: colors is not defined when using --websocket flag

When attempting to use the --websocket flag without the --proxy flag, the server crashes with a ReferenceError: colors is not defined error.

Environment Versions

1. OS Type: Windows 11
2. Node version: v22.17.0 (or run node --version)
3. http-server version: v14.1.2 (master branch, unreleased)

Steps to reproduce

1. Clone the repository and install dependencies:

   git clone https://github.com/http-party/http-server.git
   cd http-server
   npm install

2. Run http-server with the --websocket flag but without --proxy:

   node bin/http-server --websocket

3. Observe the crash

Expected result

The server should start and display a warning message:

WebSocket proxy will not be enabled because proxy is not enabled

Then continue running normally.

Actual result

The server crashes immediately with:

C:\Users\Harsh\V0 Builds\express\http-server\bin\http-server:233
      logger.warning(colors.yellow('WebSocket proxy will not be enabled because proxy is not enabled'));
                     ^

ReferenceError: colors is not defined
    at listen (C:\Users\Harsh\V0 Builds\express\http-server\bin\http-server:233:22)
    at C:\Users\Harsh\V0 Builds\express\http-server\bin\http-server:185:5
    ...

also, warning is not defined as well for logger:

Root Cause

There are two bugs on line 233 in bin/http-server:

1. Undefined variable: The code references colors which is never imported. The file imports chalk instead (line 5).
2. Undefined method: The code calls logger.warning() which doesn't exist. The logger object only has info and request methods (defined at lines 138-171).

Current code (line 233):

logger.warning(
  colors.yellow(
    "WebSocket proxy will not be enabled because proxy is not enabled",
  ),
);

Should be:

logger.info(
  chalk.yellow(
    "WebSocket proxy will not be enabled because proxy is not enabled",
  ),
);

Additional Bug: Same issue in error handler

There's also a similar bug in the nopanic error handler (lines 115-118) where colors is used instead of chalk:

console.log(colors.green(etime));
console.log(`${colors.red("Fatal error: ")}${e.code}: ${e.message}`);
console.log(colors.bold(`Check ${filename} file in this folder.`));

All three instances should use chalk instead of colors.

Other information

• The bug is currently only in the master branch and has not been released to npm yet
• This affects the unreleased websocket proxy feature
• The fix is simple: replace colors with chalk and logger.warning with logger.info

i was going through the codebase- just curios on how it works and found it!

[KernelDeimos]

Huh interesting, this is one of the problems with old PRs which appear not to have merge conflicts. On 2021-12-25 @Octalbyte opened #779. On 2022-01-10 we switched colors to chalk and changed the name of the import. On 2026-12-19 I merged #779 and never realized this error was in the PR. A linter or type checker would have prevented this.

I think this is also a really good argument for not renaming a symbol when you're already using a drop-in replacement. If we simply called chalk "colors" we would have never had this issue.

i.e. instead of

- var colors     = require('colors/safe'),
+ var chalk     = require('chalk'),

we should have done

- var colors     = require('colors/safe'),
+ var colors     = require('chalk'),