sass-loader

What is sass-loader?

The sass-loader npm package is a loader for webpack that allows you to preprocess .scss or .sass files to standard CSS. It uses the Sass compiler to convert Sass code into CSS, and then webpack can bundle the resulting CSS into your final build.

What are sass-loader's main functionalities?

Compiling Sass/SCSS to CSS

This webpack configuration snippet demonstrates how to set up sass-loader in conjunction with css-loader and style-loader to process .scss files.

module.exports = {
  module: {
    rules: [
      {
        test: /\.scss$/,
        use: [
          'style-loader',
          'css-loader',
          'sass-loader'
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
};

Source Maps

This code enables source maps for easier debugging of Sass files. It configures sass-loader to generate source maps so that the browser dev tools can display the original Sass code instead of the compiled CSS.

module.exports = {
  module: {
    rules: [
      {
        test: /\.scss$/,
        use: [
          'style-loader',
          {
            loader: 'css-loader',
            options: { sourceMap: true }
          },
          {
            loader: 'sass-loader',
            options: { sourceMap: true }
          }
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
};

Custom Functions

This example shows how to add custom functions to the Sass compilation process. The custom 'pow' function can be used within Sass files to compute powers.

const sass = require('sass');

module.exports = {
  module: {
    rules: [
      {
        test: /\.scss$/,
        use: [
          'style-loader',
          'css-loader',
          {
            loader: 'sass-loader',
            options: {
              sassOptions: {
                functions: {
                  'pow($base, $exponent)': function(base, exponent) {
                    return new sass.types.Number(Math.pow(base.getValue(), exponent.getValue()));
                  }
                }
              }
            }
          }
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
};

Other packages similar to sass-loader

node-sass

node-sass is a library that provides binding for Node.js to the Sass compiler. It allows you to natively compile .scss files to css at incredible speed. However, node-sass is deprecated in favor of Dart Sass.

postcss-loader

postcss-loader is a tool that uses PostCSS to process CSS with JavaScript plugins. It can be used for tasks such as autoprefixing, linting, and more. While sass-loader focuses on compiling Sass, postcss-loader is more about post-processing CSS.

less-loader

less-loader is similar to sass-loader but for Less, which is another preprocessor language that extends the capabilities of CSS. It's a loader for webpack that compiles Less to CSS.

stylus-loader

stylus-loader enables webpack to compile Stylus files to CSS. Stylus is another CSS preprocessor scripting language, offering similar features to Sass/SCSS.

README

sass-loader

Loads a Sass/SCSS file and compiles it to CSS.

Getting Started

To begin, you'll need to install sass-loader:

npm install sass-loader sass webpack --save-dev

sass-loader requires you to install either Dart Sass or Node Sass on your own (more documentation can be found below).

This allows you to control the versions of all your dependencies, and to choose which Sass implementation to use.

ℹ️ We highly recommend using Dart Sass.

⚠ Node Sass does not work with Yarn PnP feature and doesn't support @use rule.

Chain the sass-loader with the css-loader and the style-loader to immediately apply all styles to the DOM or the mini-css-extract-plugin to extract it into a separate file.

Then add the loader to your Webpack configuration. For example:

app.js

import "./style.scss";

style.scss

$body-color: red;

body {
  color: $body-color;
}

webpack.config.js

module.exports = {
  module: {
    rules: [
      {
        test: /\.s[ac]ss$/i,
        use: [
          // Creates `style` nodes from JS strings
          "style-loader",
          // Translates CSS into CommonJS
          "css-loader",
          // Compiles Sass to CSS
          "sass-loader",
        ],
      },
    ],
  },
};

Finally run webpack via your preferred method.

Resolving import at-rules

Webpack provides an advanced mechanism to resolve files.

The sass-loader uses Sass's custom importer feature to pass all queries to the Webpack resolving engine. Thus you can import your Sass modules from node_modules.

@import "bootstrap";

Using ~ is deprecated and can be removed from your code (we recommend it), but we still support it for historical reasons. Why can you remove it? The loader will first try to resolve @import as a relative path. If it cannot be resolved, then the loader will try to resolve @import inside node_modules.

Prepending module paths with a ~ tells webpack to search through node_modules.

@import "~bootstrap";

It's important to prepend it with only ~, because ~/ resolves to the home directory. Webpack needs to distinguish between bootstrap and ~bootstrap because CSS and Sass files have no special syntax for importing relative files. Writing @import "style.scss" is the same as @import "./style.scss";

Problems with url(...)

Since Sass implementations don't provide url rewriting, all linked assets must be relative to the output.

• If you pass the generated CSS on to the css-loader, all urls must be relative to the entry-file (e.g. main.scss).
• If you're just generating CSS without passing it to the css-loader, it must be relative to your web root.

You will be disrupted by this first issue. It is natural to expect relative references to be resolved against the .sass/.scss file in which they are specified (like in regular .css files).

Thankfully there are a two solutions to this problem:

• Add the missing url rewriting using the resolve-url-loader. Place it before sass-loader in the loader chain.
• Library authors usually provide a variable to modify the asset path. bootstrap-sass for example has an $icon-font-path.

Options

Name	Type	Default	Description
implementation	{Object}	sass	Setup Sass implementation to use.
sassOptions	{Object|Function}	defaults values for Sass implementation	Options for Sass.
sourceMap	{Boolean}	compiler.devtool	Enables/Disables generation of source maps.
additionalData	{String|Function}	undefined	Prepends/Appends Sass/SCSS code before the actual entry file.
webpackImporter	{Boolean}	true	Enables/Disables the default Webpack importer.

implementation

Type: Object Default: sass

The special implementation option determines which implementation of Sass to use.

By default the loader resolve the implementation based on your dependencies. Just add required implementation to package.json (sass or node-sass package) and install dependencies.

Example where the sass-loader loader uses the sass (dart-sass) implementation:

package.json

{
  "devDependencies": {
    "sass-loader": "^7.2.0",
    "sass": "^1.22.10"
  }
}

Example where the sass-loader loader uses the node-sass implementation:

package.json

{
  "devDependencies": {
    "sass-loader": "^7.2.0",
    "node-sass": "^5.0.0"
  }
}

Beware the situation when node-sass and sass were installed! By default the sass-loader prefers sass. In order to avoid this situation you can use the implementation option.

The implementation options either accepts sass (Dart Sass) or node-sass as a module.

For example, to use Dart Sass, you'd pass:

module.exports = {
  module: {
    rules: [
      {
        test: /\.s[ac]ss$/i,
        use: [
          "style-loader",
          "css-loader",
          {
            loader: "sass-loader",
            options: {
              // Prefer `dart-sass`
              implementation: require("sass"),
            },
          },
        ],
      },
    ],
  },
};

Note that when using sass (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.

We automatically inject the fibers package (setup sassOptions.fiber) for Node.js less v16.0.0 if is possible (i.e. you need install the fibers package).

Fibers is not compatible with Node.js v16.0.0 or later (see introduction to readme).

package.json

{
  "devDependencies": {
    "sass-loader": "^7.2.0",
    "sass": "^1.22.10",
    "fibers": "^4.0.1"
  }
}

You can disable automatically injecting the fibers package by passing a false value for the sassOptions.fiber option.

webpack.config.js

module.exports = {
  module: {
    rules: [
      {
        test: /\.s[ac]ss$/i,
        use: [
          "style-loader",
          "css-loader",
          {
            loader: "sass-loader",
            options: {
              implementation: require("sass"),
              sassOptions: {
                fiber: false,
              },
            },
          },
        ],
      },
    ],
  },
};

You can also pass the fiber value using this code:

webpack.config.js

module.exports = {
  module: {
    rules: [
      {
        test: /\.s[ac]ss$/i,
        use: [
          "style-loader",
          "css-loader",
          {
            loader: "sass-loader",
            options: {
              implementation: require("sass"),
              sassOptions: {
                fiber: require("fibers"),
              },
            },
          },
        ],
      },
    ],
  },
};

sassOptions

Type: Object|Function Default: defaults values for Sass implementation

Options for Dart Sass or Node Sass implementation.

ℹ️ The indentedSyntax option has true value for the sass extension.

ℹ️ Options such as data and file are unavailable and will be ignored.

ℹ We recommend not to set the outFile, sourceMapContents, sourceMapEmbed, sourceMapRoot options because sass-loader automatically sets these options when the sourceMap option is true.

ℹ️ Access to the loader context inside the custom importer can be done using the this.webpackLoaderContext property.

There is a slight difference between the sass (dart-sass) and node-sass options.

Please consult documentation before using them:

• Dart Sass documentation for all available sass options.
• Node Sass documentation for all available node-sass options.

Object

Use and object for the Sass implementation setup.

webpack.config.js

module.exports = {
  module: {
    rules: [
      {
        test: /\.s[ac]ss$/i,
        use: [
          "style-loader",
          "css-loader",
          {
            loader: "sass-loader",
            options: {
              sassOptions: {
                indentWidth: 4,
                includePaths: ["absolute/path/a", "absolute/path/b"],
              },
            },
          },
        ],
      },
    ],
  },
};

Function

Allows to setup the Sass implementation by setting different options based on the loader context.

module.exports = {
  module: {
    rules: [
      {
        test: /\.s[ac]ss$/i,
        use: [
          "style-loader",
          "css-loader",
          {
            loader: "sass-loader",
            options: {
              sassOptions: (loaderContext) => {
                // More information about available properties https://webpack.js.org/api/loaders/
                const { resourcePath, rootContext } = loaderContext;
                const relativePath = path.relative(rootContext, resourcePath);

                if (relativePath === "styles/foo.scss") {
                  return {
                    includePaths: ["absolute/path/c", "absolute/path/d"],
                  };
                }

                return {
                  includePaths: ["absolute/path/a", "absolute/path/b"],
                };
              },
            },
          },
        ],
      },
    ],
  },
};

sourceMap

Type: Boolean Default: depends on the compiler.devtool value

Enables/Disables generation of source maps.

By default generation of source maps depends on the devtool option. All values enable source map generation except eval and false value.

ℹ If a true the sourceMap, sourceMapRoot, sourceMapEmbed, sourceMapContents and omitSourceMapUrl from sassOptions will be ignored.

webpack.config.js

module.exports = {
  module: {
    rules: [
      {
        test: /\.s[ac]ss$/i,
        use: [
          "style-loader",
          {
            loader: "css-loader",
            options: {
              sourceMap: true,
            },
          },
          {
            loader: "sass-loader",
            options: {
              sourceMap: true,
            },
          },
        ],
      },
    ],
  },
};

ℹ In some rare cases node-sass can output invalid source maps (it is a node-sass bug).

In order to avoid this, you can try to update node-sass to latest version or you can try to set within sassOptions the outputStyle option to compressed.

webpack.config.js

module.exports = {
  module: {
    rules: [
      {
        test: /\.s[ac]ss$/i,
        use: [
          "style-loader",
          "css-loader",
          {
            loader: "sass-loader",
            options: {
              sourceMap: true,
              sassOptions: {
                outputStyle: "compressed",
              },
            },
          },
        ],
      },
    ],
  },
};

additionalData

Type: String|Function Default: undefined

Prepends Sass/SCSS code before the actual entry file. In this case, the sass-loader will not override the data option but just prepend the entry's content.

This is especially useful when some of your Sass variables depend on the environment:

String

module.exports = {
  module: {
    rules: [
      {
        test: /\.s[ac]ss$/i,
        use: [
          "style-loader",
          "css-loader",
          {
            loader: "sass-loader",
            options: {
              additionalData: "$env: " + process.env.NODE_ENV + ";",
            },
          },
        ],
      },
    ],
  },
};

Function

Sync

module.exports = {
  module: {
    rules: [
      {
        test: /\.s[ac]ss$/i,
        use: [
          "style-loader",
          "css-loader",
          {
            loader: "sass-loader",
            options: {
              additionalData: (content, loaderContext) => {
                // More information about available properties https://webpack.js.org/api/loaders/
                const { resourcePath, rootContext } = loaderContext;
                const relativePath = path.relative(rootContext, resourcePath);

                if (relativePath === "styles/foo.scss") {
                  return "$value: 100px;" + content;
                }

                return "$value: 200px;" + content;
              },
            },
          },
        ],
      },
    ],
  },
};

Async

module.exports = {
  module: {
    rules: [
      {
        test: /\.s[ac]ss$/i,
        use: [
          "style-loader",
          "css-loader",
          {
            loader: "sass-loader",
            options: {
              additionalData: async (content, loaderContext) => {
                // More information about available properties https://webpack.js.org/api/loaders/
                const { resourcePath, rootContext } = loaderContext;
                const relativePath = path.relative(rootContext, resourcePath);

                if (relativePath === "styles/foo.scss") {
                  return "$value: 100px;" + content;
                }

                return "$value: 200px;" + content;
              },
            },
          },
        ],
      },
    ],
  },
};

webpackImporter

Type: Boolean Default: true

Enables/Disables the default Webpack importer.

This can improve performance in some cases. Use it with caution because aliases and @import at-rules starting with ~ will not work. You can pass own importer to solve this (see importer docs).

webpack.config.js

module.exports = {
  module: {
    rules: [
      {
        test: /\.s[ac]ss$/i,
        use: [
          "style-loader",
          "css-loader",
          {
            loader: "sass-loader",
            options: {
              webpackImporter: false,
            },
          },
        ],
      },
    ],
  },
};

Examples

Extracts CSS into separate files

For production builds it's recommended to extract the CSS from your bundle being able to use parallel loading of CSS/JS resources later on.

There are two possibilities to extract a style sheet from the bundle:

• mini-css-extract-plugin
• extract-loader (simpler, but specialized on the css-loader's output)

webpack.config.js

const MiniCssExtractPlugin = require("mini-css-extract-plugin");

module.exports = {
  module: {
    rules: [
      {
        test: /\.s[ac]ss$/i,
        use: [
          // fallback to style-loader in development
          process.env.NODE_ENV !== "production"
            ? "style-loader"
            : MiniCssExtractPlugin.loader,
          "css-loader",
          "sass-loader",
        ],
      },
    ],
  },
  plugins: [
    new MiniCssExtractPlugin({
      // Options similar to the same options in webpackOptions.output
      // both options are optional
      filename: "[name].css",
      chunkFilename: "[id].css",
    }),
  ],
};

Source maps

Enables/Disables generation of source maps.

To enable CSS source maps, you'll need to pass the sourceMap option to the sass-loader and the css-loader.

webpack.config.js

module.exports = {
  devtool: "source-map", // any "source-map"-like devtool is possible
  module: {
    rules: [
      {
        test: /\.s[ac]ss$/i,
        use: [
          "style-loader",
          {
            loader: "css-loader",
            options: {
              sourceMap: true,
            },
          },
          {
            loader: "sass-loader",
            options: {
              sourceMap: true,
            },
          },
        ],
      },
    ],
  },
};

If you want to edit the original Sass files inside Chrome, there's a good blog post. Checkout test/sourceMap for a running example.

Contributing

Please take a moment to read our contributing guidelines if you haven't yet done so.

CONTRIBUTING

License

MIT

Changelog

12.0.0 (2021-06-01)

⚠ BREAKING CHANGES

• minimum supported Node.js version is 12.13.0

Bug Fixes

• crash in custom importers with worker threads (#958) (67aa139)
• resolving _index.import.scss/index.import.scss in packages (#906) (6641a16)