Boxen is a Node.js module that creates styled text “boxes” for display in the terminal. It’s useful for formatting console output with borders, padding and margins, optional titles, and configurable colors and alignment.
Project status
- The repository appears to be maintained, with a GitHub “last upstream push” on 2025-09-19, but the provided tagged
boxenupdates are older (latest notedv8.0.1on 2024-08-05), so it looks quiet/dormant as a released-update stream as of 2026-08-12. - Update cadence is irregular. The most recent updates cluster in 2024 (v8.0.0 on 2024-07-13, then v8.0.1 on 2024-08-05), while the previous noted update is v7.1.1 on 2023-07-04.
AI summary generated
Recent updates
v8.0.1
Release v8.0.1 is a dependency compatibility update. The package downgrades `cli-boxes` to a previous major version to address incompatibility with the targeted Node.js version.
v8.0.0
v8.0.0 is a major release that requires Node.js 18 and updates several runtime dependencies. The code diff also shows internal rendering logic changes in how boxed text is padded and aligned, plus some packaging metadata updates in package.json.
Breakingv7.1.1
v7.1.1 contains a targeted fix for the `borderStyle: 'none'` option. The code changes go beyond just character rendering, adjusting how borders affect computed width and height, and changing the box layout structure when borders are disabled.
v7.1.0
v7.1.0 introduces the ability to effectively remove the box border by adding a new border style option. The implementation and TypeScript types were updated accordingly, and dependencies were bumped. Release notes only mention border optionality at a high level, but the diff shows additional type and validation behavior changes.
BreakingFeaturesv7.0.2
v7.0.2 makes a TypeScript type adjustment related to Boxen's `Spacing` interface. The release notes only mention this change, and the code diff shows it is an `index.d.ts`-only update with no runtime code changes.
Breakingv7.0.1
Release v7.0.1 updates how box content is rendered by always using newline characters as the line separator, addressing an output consistency issue. It also includes minor documentation spelling and formatting tweaks.
v7.0.0
v7.0.0 introduces new layout options for box sizing, adding `height` (fixed vertical size) and `fullscreen` (use available terminal dimensions, optionally via a callback). It also raises the minimum supported Node.js version. The release notes mention these items, but the code diff shows additional behavioral and configuration changes not fully captured in the notes.
BreakingFeaturesv6.2.1
v6.2.1 updates the package version and bumps a small set of dependencies. The release notes only state that dependencies were updated, without listing which ones or any potential impact.
v6.2.0
v6.2.0 adds a new `width` option to create boxes with a fixed terminal width. The implementation refactors the internal sizing logic to compute dimensions via a new `determineDimensions` helper, adjusting title, margins, and padding based on the requested width and current terminal columns.
Featuresv6.1.0
v6.1.0 updates the `borderStyle` custom border object to use `top`, `bottom`, `left`, and `right` keys instead of `horizontal` and `vertical`. The release notes claim backwards compatibility for existing `horizontal`/`vertical` users. The code diff also shows additional changes not covered in the release notes, including new documented border presets and a dependency major-version bump.
Features