Can I get colored output from gulp in VSCode output window?

Question

I've been following this guide from Dan Wahlin to get a gulp task up and running. Now I wanted to execute it from VSCode with Ctrl+Shift+B so I configured this task runner:

{
"version": "0.1.0",
"command": "gulp",
"isShellCommand": true,
"args": [
    "--no-color"
],
"tasks": [{"taskName":"default","isBuildCommand": true,"isWatching": true,"showOutput": "silent"}]

}

The "--no-color" argument is default in the tasks.json that is automatically created by VSCode. If I remove it, the output from gulp is still not showing colors. I want my lint errors to show up in red text.

Is it possible to get colored output from gulp within the VSCode output window?

Answer 1

Currently not, but we have a plan item to support colored output for the future.

You can follow it up here.

Answer 2

I stumbled upon Output Colorizer from IBM. It works perfectly! It is available on the VS Code marketplace at https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=IBM.output-colorizer

Alternatively you can just look for Output Colorizer from the extension palette in VS Code.

Answer 3

Add the following to your tasks.json:

"_runner": "terminal",

That will redirect the output to the internal terminal, and will show colors properly.