gulp-sass

What is gulp-sass?

The gulp-sass package is a Gulp plugin that allows you to compile Sass (Syntactically Awesome Stylesheets) files into CSS. It integrates seamlessly with Gulp, a toolkit for automating painful or time-consuming tasks in your development workflow.

What are gulp-sass's main functionalities?

Compile Sass to CSS

This feature allows you to compile Sass files into CSS. The code sample demonstrates a Gulp task that takes all .scss files from the src/scss directory, compiles them into CSS, and outputs them to the dist/css directory.

const gulp = require('gulp');
const sass = require('gulp-sass')(require('sass'));

gulp.task('sass', function() {
  return gulp.src('./src/scss/**/*.scss')
    .pipe(sass().on('error', sass.logError))
    .pipe(gulp.dest('./dist/css'));
});

Watch for changes

This feature allows you to watch for changes in your Sass files and automatically compile them to CSS whenever a change is detected. The code sample demonstrates a Gulp task that watches the src/scss directory for changes and runs the 'sass' task whenever a change is detected.

const gulp = require('gulp');
const sass = require('gulp-sass')(require('sass'));

gulp.task('sass', function() {
  return gulp.src('./src/scss/**/*.scss')
    .pipe(sass().on('error', sass.logError))
    .pipe(gulp.dest('./dist/css'));
});

gulp.task('watch', function() {
  gulp.watch('./src/scss/**/*.scss', gulp.series('sass'));
});

Source Maps

This feature allows you to generate source maps for your compiled CSS files, which can be useful for debugging. The code sample demonstrates a Gulp task that initializes source maps, compiles Sass to CSS, writes the source maps to a maps directory, and outputs the CSS to the dist/css directory.

const gulp = require('gulp');
const sass = require('gulp-sass')(require('sass'));
const sourcemaps = require('gulp-sourcemaps');

gulp.task('sass', function() {
  return gulp.src('./src/scss/**/*.scss')
    .pipe(sourcemaps.init())
    .pipe(sass().on('error', sass.logError))
    .pipe(sourcemaps.write('./maps'))
    .pipe(gulp.dest('./dist/css'));
});

Other packages similar to gulp-sass

node-sass

node-sass is a library that provides binding for Node.js to LibSass, the C version of the popular stylesheet preprocessor, Sass. It can be used independently or integrated into build tools like Gulp or Grunt. Compared to gulp-sass, node-sass is more low-level and requires additional setup to integrate with Gulp.

sass

sass is the official Dart implementation of Sass, which is the primary implementation used by the Sass team. It can be used with Node.js and is often preferred for its speed and compatibility with the latest Sass features. Like node-sass, it can be integrated into Gulp but requires additional configuration.

gulp-less

gulp-less is a Gulp plugin for compiling Less files to CSS. While it serves a similar purpose to gulp-sass, it is specifically designed for Less, another CSS preprocessor. It offers similar functionality but is not compatible with Sass files.

README

gulp-sass

Sass plugin for Gulp.

Before filing an issue, please make sure you have Updated to the latest Gulp Sass and have gone through our Common Issues and Their Fixes section.

Support

Only Active LTS and Current releases are supported.

Install

npm install node-sass gulp-sass --save-dev

Basic Usage

Something like this will compile your Sass files:

'use strict';

var gulp = require('gulp');
var sass = require('gulp-sass');

sass.compiler = require('node-sass');

gulp.task('sass', function () {
  return gulp.src('./sass/**/*.scss')
    .pipe(sass().on('error', sass.logError))
    .pipe(gulp.dest('./css'));
});

gulp.task('sass:watch', function () {
  gulp.watch('./sass/**/*.scss', ['sass']);
});

You can also compile synchronously, doing something like this:

'use strict';

var gulp = require('gulp');
var sass = require('gulp-sass');

sass.compiler = require('node-sass');

gulp.task('sass', function () {
  return gulp.src('./sass/**/*.scss')
    .pipe(sass.sync().on('error', sass.logError))
    .pipe(gulp.dest('./css'));
});

gulp.task('sass:watch', function () {
  gulp.watch('./sass/**/*.scss', ['sass']);
});

You can choose whether to use Dart Sass or Node Sass by setting the sass.compiler property. Node Sass will be used by default, but it's strongly recommended that you set it explicitly for forwards-compatibility in case the default ever changes.

Note that when using Dart Sass, synchronous compilation is twice as fast as asynchronous compilation by default, due to the overhead of asynchronous callbacks. To avoid this overhead, you can use the fibers package to call asynchronous importers from the synchronous code path. To enable this, pass the Fiber class to the fiber option:

'use strict';

var Fiber = require('fibers');
var gulp = require('gulp');
var sass = require('gulp-sass');

sass.compiler = require('sass');

gulp.task('sass', function () {
  return gulp.src('./sass/**/*.scss')
    .pipe(sass({fiber: Fiber}).on('error', sass.logError))
    .pipe(gulp.dest('./css'));
});

gulp.task('sass:watch', function () {
  gulp.watch('./sass/**/*.scss', ['sass']);
});

Options

Pass in options just like you would for Node Sass; they will be passed along just as if you were using Node Sass. Except for the data option which is used by gulp-sass internally. Using the file option is also unsupported and results in undefined behaviour that may change without notice.

For example:

gulp.task('sass', function () {
 return gulp.src('./sass/**/*.scss')
   .pipe(sass({outputStyle: 'compressed'}).on('error', sass.logError))
   .pipe(gulp.dest('./css'));
});

Or this for synchronous code:

gulp.task('sass', function () {
 return gulp.src('./sass/**/*.scss')
   .pipe(sass.sync({outputStyle: 'compressed'}).on('error', sass.logError))
   .pipe(gulp.dest('./css'));
});

Source Maps

gulp-sass can be used in tandem with gulp-sourcemaps to generate source maps for the Sass to CSS compilation. You will need to initialize gulp-sourcemaps prior to running gulp-sass and write the source maps after.

var sourcemaps = require('gulp-sourcemaps');

gulp.task('sass', function () {
 return gulp.src('./sass/**/*.scss')
  .pipe(sourcemaps.init())
  .pipe(sass().on('error', sass.logError))
  .pipe(sourcemaps.write())
  .pipe(gulp.dest('./css'));
});

By default, gulp-sourcemaps writes the source maps inline in the compiled CSS files. To write them to a separate file, specify a path relative to the gulp.dest() destination in the sourcemaps.write() function.

var sourcemaps = require('gulp-sourcemaps');
gulp.task('sass', function () {
 return gulp.src('./sass/**/*.scss')
  .pipe(sourcemaps.init())
  .pipe(sass().on('error', sass.logError))
  .pipe(sourcemaps.write('./maps'))
  .pipe(gulp.dest('./css'));
});

Issues

gulp-sass is a very light-weight wrapper around either Dart Sass or Node Sass (which in turn is a Node binding for LibSass). Because of this, the issue you're having likely isn't a gulp-sass issue, but an issue with one those projects or with Sass as a whole.

If you have a feature request/question how Sass works/concerns on how your Sass gets compiled/errors in your compiling, it's likely a Dart Sass or LibSass issue and you should file your issue with one of those projects.

If you're having problems with the options you're passing in, it's likely a Dart Sass or Node Sass issue and you should file your issue with one of those projects.

We may, in the course of resolving issues, direct you to one of these other projects. If we do so, please follow up by searching that project's issue queue (both open and closed) for your problem and, if it doesn't exist, filing an issue with them.

Changelog

v4.1.1

June 24, 2021

https://github.com/dlmanning/gulp-sass/releases/tag/v4.1.1