Question: Is there a way to display colors (like in a terminal) in the Debug Console of Visual Studio Code (Version 1.10.2) when debugging node.js code?

Answer: 
To output coloured messages from nodejs in visual studio you can use formatted message in console.log method. for example : 

```
console.log('\u001b[' + 32 + 'm' + 'hello stack' + '\u001b[0m')

```

as implemented in [Mocha](https://github.com/mochajs/). 32 is a color code. Other color codes and usage sample you can find in theirs repo: <https://github.com/mochajs/mocha/blob/9e95d36e4b715380cef573014dec852bded3f8e1/lib/reporters/base.js#L48>

[![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/3LrRB.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/3LrRB.png)

Or as a log library you can use, for example [pinojs](https://github.com/pinojs/pino) + [pino-pretty](https://github.com/pinojs/pino-pretty) module and your log output will be displayed as here : 

[![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/49Afn.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/49Afn.jpg)
Really quick and dirty for Java console from a Java noob:

```
private static void debugLog(String msg) {
  if (msg.indexOf("Exception") > -1) {
    System.out.println("\u001b[31m" + msg + "\u001b[0m");
  } else {
    System.out.println("\u001b[32m" + msg + "\u001b[0m");
  }
}

```