auto-group-console v1.0.0-beta.1

Intoduction

This is a simple library to group console messages automatically by Event Loop frames. This is useful in JavaScript applications that have a lot of event triggers, as it allows you to group console output by triggering action. It works by creating a Microtask to close the console group at the end of the current Event Loop.

Install

This library can be install from NPM.

npm install auto-group-console

Usage

The library provides two modes of operation, groupConsole and deferConsole, They both provide the same interface and are interchangeable. The groupConsole version outputs logs in real time and creates a microtask to end the console group. Whereas the deferConsole version, stores all console messages and outputs everything through the microtask after the main task has completed.

The deferred approach has several tradeoffs, it allows you to set the group heading after the first log message and suppresses stack traces, which might be useful on public sites. However, it also prevents console timers giving accurate results.

Group Console

The Group Console creates a group on the first message and then closed the group when the current Event Loop task ends.

import { createGroupConsole } from 'auto-group-console'

const groupConsole = createGroupConsole({ options })

// All console methods are reflected on groupConsole
groupConsole.log('Log message')
groupConsole.table(['foo', 'bar'])
groupConsole.count('Counter')

Defer Console

The Defer Console, outputs all console messages at the end of the current Event Loop task.

import { createDeferConsole } from 'auto-group-console'

const deferConsole = createDeferConsole({ options })

// All console methods are reflected on deferConsole
deferConsole.log('Log message')
deferConsole.assert(true, 'Assertion')
deferConsole.debug('Debug message')

When deferring console output, the timer, trace and profile console methods won't give accurate results, as they are no longer running in the main task context.

Options

The following options can be passed to createGroupConsole and createDeferConsole.

{
  enabled: true / false
  title: 'Default Group Title'
}

When enabled is set to false it will suppress all messages to the console.

Methods

In addition to the full Console API, the following methods are also available.

setEnabled(true/false)

Turn console logging on and off.

setLoopEnabled(true/false)

Turn console logging on and off for just the current loop.

setTitle(title)

Set the group title. If this is called after a message call when using groupConsole, then the title will only update on the next event loop.

setLoopTitle(title)

Set the group title just for the current loop. For groupConsole, this has to be set before the first message call. With deferConsole it can be set anytime within the current event loop.

© 2025 David J. Bradshaw - License MIT