@vanilla-extract/sprinkles

What is @vanilla-extract/sprinkles?

@vanilla-extract/sprinkles is a utility for creating type-safe, theme-aware utility styles in Vanilla Extract. It allows you to define design tokens and responsive styles in a type-safe manner, making it easier to manage and apply consistent styling across your application.

What are @vanilla-extract/sprinkles's main functionalities?

Define Design Tokens

You can define design tokens such as colors and spacing scales, which can be used throughout your application to ensure consistency.

const colors = {
  primary: 'blue',
  secondary: 'green'
};

const space = {
  small: '4px',
  medium: '8px',
  large: '16px'
};

Create Sprinkles

Sprinkles allow you to create utility classes based on your design tokens. This makes it easy to apply consistent styles across your application.

import { createSprinkles, defineProperties } from '@vanilla-extract/sprinkles';

const sprinkles = createSprinkles(
  defineProperties({
    properties: {
      color: ['primary', 'secondary'],
      padding: ['small', 'medium', 'large']
    }
  })
);

Apply Sprinkles

You can apply the sprinkles to your components, ensuring that the styles are type-safe and consistent with your design tokens.

import { sprinkles } from './sprinkles.css';

const className = sprinkles({
  color: 'primary',
  padding: 'medium'
});

Other packages similar to @vanilla-extract/sprinkles

styled-system

Styled System is a collection of utility functions for building design systems with React. It provides a set of functions for creating responsive, theme-based style props. Compared to @vanilla-extract/sprinkles, Styled System is more focused on React and offers a broader range of utilities for building design systems.

twin.macro

Twin.macro is a library that allows you to use Tailwind CSS with styled-components or Emotion. It provides a way to use Tailwind's utility classes within a CSS-in-JS framework. While @vanilla-extract/sprinkles focuses on type-safe, theme-aware utility styles, twin.macro leverages the utility-first approach of Tailwind CSS within a CSS-in-JS context.

emotion

Emotion is a library designed for writing CSS styles with JavaScript. It provides powerful and flexible styling capabilities, including support for theming and responsive styles. Compared to @vanilla-extract/sprinkles, Emotion offers a more comprehensive solution for CSS-in-JS, but may not provide the same level of type safety and design token integration.

README

🍨 Sprinkles

Zero-runtime atomic CSS framework for vanilla-extract.

Generate a static set of custom utility classes and compose them either statically at build time, or dynamically at runtime, without the usual style generation overhead of CSS-in-JS.

Basically, it’s like building your own zero-runtime, type-safe version of Tailwind, Styled System, etc.

---

Compose sprinkles statically at build time.

// styles.css.ts

export const className = sprinkles({
  display: 'flex',
  paddingX: 'small',
  flexDirection: {
    mobile: 'column',
    desktop: 'row'
  },
  background: {
    lightMode: 'blue-50',
    darkMode: 'gray-700'
  }
});

Or compose them dynamically at runtime! 🏃‍♂️

// app.ts

import { sprinkles } from './sprinkles.css.ts';

const flexDirection = Math.random() > 0.5 ? 'column' : 'row';

document.write(`
  <section class="${sprinkles({ display: 'flex', flexDirection })}">
    ...
  </section>
`);

---

🔥   Zero-runtime CSS-in-TypeScript with all styles generated at build time via vanilla-extract.

🛠   Create your own custom set of atomic classes with declarative config.

💪   Type-safe functional API for accessing sprinkles.

🏃‍♂️   Compose sprinkles statically in .css.ts files, or dynamically at runtime (<0.5KB Gzip)

🎨   Generate theme-based scales with CSS Variables using vanilla-extract themes.

✍️   Configure shorthands for common property combinations, e.g. paddingX / paddingY.

🚦   Conditional sprinkles to target media/feature queries and selectors.

✨   Scope conditions to individual properties.

---

🖥   Try it out for yourself in CodeSandbox.

---

Setup

💡 Before starting, ensure you've set up vanilla-extract.

Install Sprinkles.

$ npm install @vanilla-extract/sprinkles

Create a sprinkles.css.ts file, then configure and export your sprinkles function.

💡 This is just an example! Feel free to customise properties, values and conditions to match your requirements.

// sprinkles.css.ts
import { defineProperties, createSprinkles } from '@vanilla-extract/sprinkles';

const space = {
  'none': 0,
  'small': '4px',
  'medium': '8px',
  'large': '16px',
  // etc.
};

const responsiveProperties = defineProperties({
  conditions: {
    mobile: {},
    tablet: { '@media': 'screen and (min-width: 768px)' },
    desktop: { '@media': 'screen and (min-width: 1024px)' }
  },
  defaultCondition: 'mobile',
  properties: {
    display: ['none', 'flex', 'block', 'inline'],
    flexDirection: ['row', 'column'],
    justifyContent: ['stretch', 'flex-start', 'center', 'flex-end', 'space-around', 'space-between'],
    alignItems: ['stretch', 'flex-start', 'center', 'flex-end'],
    paddingTop: space,
    paddingBottom: space,
    paddingLeft: space,
    paddingRight: space,
    // etc.
  },
  shorthands: {
    padding: ['paddingTop', 'paddingBottom', 'paddingLeft', 'paddingRight'],
    paddingX: ['paddingLeft', 'paddingRight'],
    paddingY: ['paddingTop', 'paddingBottom'],
    placeItems: ['justifyContent', 'alignItems'],
  }
});

const colors = {
  'blue-50': '#eff6ff',
  'blue-100': '#dbeafe',
  'blue-200': '#bfdbfe',
  'gray-700': '#374151',
  'gray-800': '#1f2937',
  'gray-900': '#111827',
  // etc.
};

const colorProperties = defineProperties({
  conditions: {
    lightMode: {},
    darkMode: { '@media': '(prefers-color-scheme: dark)' }
  },
  defaultCondition: 'lightMode',
  properties: {
    color: colors,
    background: colors,
    // etc.
  }
});

export const sprinkles = createSprinkles(responsiveProperties, colorProperties);

// It's a good idea to export the Sprinkles type too
export type Sprinkles = Parameters<typeof sprinkles>[0];

🎉 That's it — you’re ready to go!

Usage

You can now use your sprinkles function in .css.ts files for zero-runtime usage.

// styles.css.ts
import { sprinkles } from './sprinkles.css.ts';

export const container = sprinkles({
  display: 'flex',
  paddingX: 'small',

  // Conditional sprinkles:
  flexDirection: {
    mobile: 'column',
    desktop: 'row',
  },
  background: {
    lightMode: 'blue-50',
    darkMode: 'gray-700',
  }
});

If you want, you can even use your sprinkles function at runtime! 🏃‍♂️

// app.ts
import { sprinkles } from './sprinkles.css.ts';

const flexDirection = Math.random() > 0.5 ? 'column' : 'row';

document.write(`
  <section class="${sprinkles({ display: 'flex', flexDirection })}">
    ...
  </section>
`);

💡 Although you don’t need to use this library at runtime, it’s designed to be as small and performant as possible. The runtime is only used to look up pre-existing class names. All styles are still generated at build time!

Within .css.ts files, combine with any custom styles by providing an array to vanilla-extract’s style function.

// styles.css.ts
import { style } from '@vanilla-extract/css';
import { sprinkles } from './sprinkles.css.ts';

export const container = style([
  sprinkles({
    display: 'flex',
    padding: 'small'
  }),
  {
    ':hover': {
      outline: '2px solid currentColor'
    }
  }
]);

Sprinkles uses this internally, which means that a class list returned by sprinkles can be treated as if it were a single class within vanilla-extract selectors.

// styles.css.ts
import { globalStyle } from '@vanilla-extract/css';
import { sprinkles } from './sprinkles.css.ts';

export const container = sprinkles({
  padding: 'small'
});

globalStyle(`${container} *`, {
  boxSizing: 'border-box'
});

---

⚛️   Using React? Turn your sprinkles into a <Box> component with 🍰 Dessert Box.

---

• API
  • defineProperties
    • properties
    • shorthands
    • conditions
    • defaultCondition
    • responsiveArray
  • createSprinkles
• Utilities
  • createMapValueFn
  • createNormalizeValueFn
• Types
  • ConditionalValue
  • RequiredConditionalValue
• Thanks
• License

---

API

defineProperties

Defines a collection of utility classes with properties, conditions and shorthands.

If you need to scope different conditions to different properties (e.g. some properties support breakpoints, some support light mode and dark mode, some are unconditional), you can provide as many collections of properties to createSprinkles as you like.

import {
  defineProperties,
  createSprinkles
} from '@vanilla-extract/sprinkles';

const space = {
  none: 0,
  small: '4px',
  medium: '8px',
  large: '16px'
};

const colors = {
  blue50: '#eff6ff',
  blue100: '#dbeafe',
  blue200: '#bfdbfe'
  // etc.
};

const responsiveProperties = defineProperties({
  conditions: {
    mobile: {},
    tablet: { '@media': 'screen and (min-width: 768px)' },
    desktop: { '@media': 'screen and (min-width: 1024px)' }
  },
  defaultCondition: 'mobile',
  properties: {
    display: ['none', 'block', 'flex'],
    flexDirection: ['row', 'column'],
    padding: space
    // etc.
  }
});

const colorProperties = defineProperties({
  conditions: {
    lightMode: { '@media': '(prefers-color-scheme: light)' },
    darkMode: { '@media': '(prefers-color-scheme: dark)' }
  },
  defaultCondition: false,
  properties: {
    color: colors,
    background: colors
  }
  // etc.
});

export const sprinkles = createSprinkles(
  responsiveProperties,
  colorProperties
);

💡 If you want a good color palette to work with, you might want to consider importing tailwindcss/colors.

properties

Define which CSS properties and values should be available.

For simple mappings (i.e. valid CSS values), values can be provided as an array.

import { defineProperties } from '@vanilla-extract/sprinkles';

const responsiveProperties = defineProperties({
  properties: {
    display: ['none', 'block', 'flex'],
    flexDirection: ['row', 'column'],
    alignItems: [
      'stretch',
      'flex-start',
      'center',
      'flex-end'
    ],
    justifyContent: [
      'stretch',
      'flex-start',
      'center',
      'flex-end'
    ]
    // etc.
  }
});

For semantic mappings (e.g. space scales, color palettes), values can be provided as an object.

import { defineProperties } from '@vanilla-extract/sprinkles';

const responsiveProperties = defineProperties({
  properties: {
    gap: {
      none: 0,
      small: 4,
      medium: 8,
      large: 16
    }
    // etc.
  }
});

You can also use vanilla-extract themes to configure themed values.

import { defineProperties } from '@vanilla-extract/sprinkles';
import { vars } from './vars.css.ts';

const responsiveProperties = defineProperties({
  properties: {
    gap: vars.space
    // etc.
  }
});

For more complicated scenarios, values can even be entire style objects. This works especially well when combined with CSS Variables.

💡 Styles are created in the order that they were defined in your config. Properties that are less specific should be higher in the list.

import { createVar } from '@vanilla-extract/css';
import { defineProperties } from '@vanilla-extract/sprinkles';

const alpha = createVar();

const responsiveProperties = defineProperties({
  properties: {
    background: {
      red: {
        vars: { [alpha]: '1' },
        background: `rgba(255, 0, 0, ${alpha})`
      }
    },
    backgroundOpacity: {
      1: { vars: { [alpha]: '1' } },
      0.1: { vars: { [alpha]: '0.1' } }
    }
    // etc.
  }
});

shorthands

Maps custom shorthand properties to multiple underlying CSS properties. This is useful for mapping values like padding/paddingX/paddingY to their underlying longhand values.

💡 Shorthands are evaluated in the order that they were defined in your configuration. Shorthands that are less specific should be higher in the list, e.g. padding should come before paddingX/paddingY.

import { defineProperties } from '@vanilla-extract/sprinkles';
import { vars } from './vars.css.ts';

const responsiveProperties = defineProperties({
  properties: {
    paddingTop: vars.space,
    paddingBottom: vars.space,
    paddingLeft: vars.space,
    paddingRight: vars.space
  },
  shorthands: {
    padding: [
      'paddingTop',
      'paddingBottom',
      'paddingLeft',
      'paddingRight'
    ],
    paddingX: ['paddingLeft', 'paddingRight'],
    paddingY: ['paddingTop', 'paddingBottom']
  }
});

conditions

Define a set of media/feature queries for the provided properties.

import { defineProperties } from '@vanilla-extract/sprinkles';

const responsiveProperties = defineProperties({
  conditions: {
    mobile: {},
    tablet: { '@media': 'screen and (min-width: 768px)' },
    desktop: { '@media': 'screen and (min-width: 1024px)' }
  },
  defaultCondition: 'mobile'
  // etc.
});

Properties can also be scoped to selectors.

import { defineProperties } from '@vanilla-extract/sprinkles';

const properties = defineProperties({
  conditions: {
    default: {},
    hover: { selector: '&:hover' },
    focus: { selector: '&:focus' }
  },
  defaultCondition: 'default'
  // etc.
});

defaultCondition

Defines which condition(s) should be used when a non-conditional value is requested, e.g. sprinkles({ display: 'flex' }).

If you're using mobile-first responsive conditions, this should be your lowest breakpoint.

import { defineProperties } from '@vanilla-extract/sprinkles';

const responsiveProperties = defineProperties({
  conditions: {
    mobile: {},
    tablet: { '@media': 'screen and (min-width: 768px)' },
    desktop: { '@media': 'screen and (min-width: 1024px)' }
  },
  defaultCondition: 'mobile'
  // etc.
});

If your conditions are mutually exclusive (e.g. light mode and dark mode), you can provide an array of default conditions. For example, the following configuration would automatically expand sprinkles({ background: 'white' }) to the equivalent of sprinkles({ background: { lightMode: 'white', darkMode: 'white' }}).

import { defineProperties } from '@vanilla-extract/sprinkles';

const responsiveProperties = defineProperties({
  conditions: {
    lightMode: { '@media': '(prefers-color-scheme: light)' },
    darkMode: { '@media': '(prefers-color-scheme: dark)' }
  },
  defaultCondition: ['lightMode', 'darkMode']
  // etc.
});

You can also set defaultCondition to false, which forces you to be explicit about which conditions you’re targeting.

import { defineProperties } from '@vanilla-extract/sprinkles';

const responsiveProperties = defineProperties({
  conditions: {
    lightMode: {
      '@media': '(prefers-color-scheme: light)'
    },
    darkMode: { '@media': '(prefers-color-scheme: dark)' }
  },
  defaultCondition: false
  // etc.
});

responsiveArray

Providing an array of condition names enables the responsive array notation (e.g. ['column', 'row']) by defining the order of conditions.

import { defineProperties } from '@vanilla-extract/sprinkles';

const responsiveProperties = defineProperties({
  conditions: {
    mobile: {},
    tablet: { '@media': 'screen and (min-width: 768px)' },
    desktop: { '@media': 'screen and (min-width: 1024px)' }
  },
  defaultCondition: 'mobile',
  responsiveArray: ['mobile', 'tablet', 'desktop']
  // etc.
});

createSprinkles

Creates a type-safe function for accessing your defined properties. You can provide as many collections of properties as you like.

import {
  defineProperties,
  createSprinkles
} from '@vanilla-extract/sprinkles';

const responsiveProperties = defineProperties({
  /* ... */
});
const unconditionalProperties = defineProperties({
  /* ... */
});
const colorProperties = defineProperties({
  /* ... */
});

export const sprinkles = createSprinkles(
  responsiveProperties,
  unconditionalProperties,
  colorProperties
);

The sprinkles function also exposes a static properties key that lets you check whether a given property can be handled by the function.

sprinkles.properties.has('paddingX');
// -> boolean

💡 This is useful when building a Box component with sprinkles available at the top level (e.g. <Box padding="small">) since you’ll need some way to filter sprinkle props from non-sprinkle props.

Utilities

createMapValueFn

Creates a function for mapping over conditional values.

💡 This is useful for converting high-level prop values to low-level sprinkles, e.g. converting left/right to flex-start/end.

This function should be created and exported from your sprinkles.css.ts file using the conditions from your defined properties.

You can name the generated function whatever you like, typically based on the name of your conditions.

import {
  defineProperties,
  createSprinkles,
  createMapValueFn
} from '@vanilla-extract/sprinkles';

const responsiveProperties = defineProperties({
  /* ... */
});

export const sprinkles = createSprinkles(
  responsiveProperties
);
export const mapResponsiveValue = createMapValueFn(
  responsiveProperties
);

You can then import the generated function in your app code.

import { mapResponsiveValue } from './sprinkles.css.ts';

const alignToFlexAlign = {
  left: 'flex-start',
  center: 'center',
  right: 'flex-end',
  stretch: 'stretch'
} as const;

mapResponsiveValue(
  'left',
  (value) => alignToFlexAlign[value]
);
// -> 'flex-start'

mapResponsiveValue(
  {
    mobile: 'center',
    desktop: 'left'
  } as const,
  (value) => alignToFlexAlign[value]
);
// -> { mobile: 'center', desktop: 'flex-start' }

mapResponsiveValue(
  ['center', null, 'left'] as const,
  (value) => alignToFlexAlign[value]
);
// -> { mobile: 'center', desktop: 'flex-start' }

💡 You can generate a custom conditional value type with the ConditionalValue type.

createNormalizeValueFn

Creates a function for normalizing conditional values into a consistent object stucture. Any primitive values or responsive arrays will be converted to conditional objects.

This function should be created and exported from your sprinkles.css.ts file using the conditions from your defined properties.

💡 You can name the generated function whatever you like, typically based on the name of your conditions.

import {
  defineProperties,
  createSprinkles,
  createNormalizeValueFn
} from '@vanilla-extract/sprinkles';

const responsiveProperties = defineProperties({
  /* ... */
});

export const sprinkles = createSprinkles(
  responsiveProperties
);
export const normalizeResponsiveValue =
  createNormalizeValueFn(responsiveProperties);

You can then import the generated function in your app code.

import { normalizeResponsiveValue } from './sprinkles.css.ts';

normalizeResponsiveValue('block');
// -> { mobile: 'block' }

normalizeResponsiveValue(['none', null, 'block']);
// -> { mobile: 'block', desktop: 'block' }

normalizeResponsiveValue({
  mobile: 'none',
  desktop: 'block'
});
// -> { mobile: 'block', desktop: 'block' }

Types

ConditionalValue

Creates a custom conditional value type.

💡 This is useful for typing high-level prop values that are mapped to low-level sprinkles, e.g. supporting left/right prop values that map to flex-start/end.

This type should be created and exported from your sprinkles.css.ts file using the conditions from your defined properties.

💡 You can name the generated type whatever you like, typically based on the name of your conditions.

import {
  defineProperties,
  ConditionalValue
} from '@vanilla-extract/sprinkles';

const responsiveProperties = defineProperties({
  /* ... */
});

export type ResponsiveValue<Value extends string | number> =
  ConditionalValue<typeof responsiveProperties, Value>;

You can then import the generated type in your app code.

import { ResponsiveValue } from './sprinkles.css.ts';

type ResponsiveAlign = ResponsiveValue<
  'left' | 'center' | 'right'
>;

const a: ResponsiveAlign = 'left';
const b: ResponsiveAlign = {
  mobile: 'center',
  desktop: 'left'
};
const c: ResponsiveAlign = ['center', null, 'left'];

RequiredConditionalValue

Same as ConditionalValue except the default condition is required. For example, if your default condition was 'mobile', then a conditional value of { desktop: '...' } would be a type error.

import {
  defineProperties,
  RequiredConditionalValue
} from '@vanilla-extract/sprinkles';

const responsiveProperties = defineProperties({
  defaultCondition: 'mobile'
  // etc.
});

export type RequiredResponsiveValue<
  Value extends string | number
> = RequiredConditionalValue<
  typeof responsiveProperties,
  Value
>;

You can then import the generated type in your app code.

import { RequiredResponsiveValue } from './sprinkles.css.ts';

type ResponsiveAlign = RequiredResponsiveValue<
  'left' | 'center' | 'right'
>;

const a: ResponsiveAlign = 'left';
const b: ResponsiveAlign = {
  mobile: 'center',
  desktop: 'left'
};
const c: ResponsiveAlign = ['center', null, 'left'];

// Type errors:
const d: ResponsiveAlign = [null, 'center'];
const e: ResponsiveAlign = { desktop: 'center' };

---

Thanks

• Styled System for inspiring our approach to responsive props.
• Tailwind for teaching us to think utility-first.
• SEEK for giving us the space to do interesting work.

License

MIT.