http-status-toolkit : A Lightweight, TypeScript-Friendly Alternative to http-status-codes

In my backend projects, I got tired of constantly writing raw status code numbers like:

res.status(200)
res.status(404)

It works — but it's not expressive. And honestly, it makes code harder to read and maintain over time. Like many developers, I wanted something cleaner, more intuitive, and easier to understand at a glance.

So I looked into existing solutions.

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🚫 First I Tried http-status-codes

http-status-codes is a well-known package. With it, you can write:

import { StatusCodes } from "http-status-codes";
res.status(StatusCodes.OK);

Much better than hardcoded numbers — but it came with a few drawbacks:

• ❌ No ESM support
• ❌ No localization
• ❌ No detailed reason phrases
• ❌ Separate type definitions (@types/http-status-codes)
• ❌ Slightly bloated — 12+ KB minified

It didn’t quite solve my problems. So I kept looking.

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😐 Then I Tried http-status

http-status is another popular choice. It does support both CommonJS and ESM out of the box — nice. But it still had some limitations:

• ❌ No localization or i18n support
• ❌ Only short, generic messages
• ❌ No detailed descriptions for each code
• ❌ Lacks modern TypeScript typings
• ❌ Not tree-shakable

So again — better than nothing, but not enough.

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✅ So I Built http-status-toolkit

I created http-status-toolkit to solve all of the above. It’s modern, lightweight, and built for real-world developer needs.

Here’s what it offers:

• ✅ TypeScript-first with full type safety and autocompletion
• ✅ ESM and CommonJS support
• ✅ Short + detailed human-readable messages
• ✅ Localization support in 10+ languages
• ✅ Tree-shakable and subpath exportable
• ✅ Built with tsup for clean, modern builds
• ✅ Extremely lightweight: ~4.1 KB minified / ~2.2 KB gzipped

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🧪 Example Usage

import { StatusCodes, getStatusMessage } from "http-status-toolkit";

console.log(StatusCodes.OK); 
// 200

console.log(getStatusMessage(StatusCodes.NOT_FOUND)); 
// "Not Found"

// Detailed message
import DetailedMessages from "http-status-toolkit/messages-detailed";
console.log(getStatusMessage(StatusCodes.NOT_FOUND, { variant: DetailedMessages }));
// "Not Found: The requested resource could not be found but may be available in the future."

// Localized message (Bengali)
import BengaliMessages from 'http-status-toolkit/messages-bn';
console.log(getStatusMessage(StatusCodes.NOT_FOUND, { variant: BengaliMessages }));
// Output: (Not Found message in Bengali)

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📊 Feature Comparison

📦 Bundle size is based on Bundlephobia

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💡 Why It Matters

http-status-toolkit improves:

• Readability: No more res.status(403) — use StatusCodes.FORBIDDEN
• Clarity: Choose between short, detailed, or localized messages
• Internationalization: Easily display meaningful error responses in your users' languages
• Developer Experience: Clean API, tree-shakable, and TypeScript-native

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🧭 Want to Explore?

• 🔗 View on npm
• 💻 View source on GitHub
• 🌐 Visit my portfolio

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Built with ❤️ and TypeScript by Rashedin Islam
If you find it useful, consider giving it a ⭐ on GitHub.