Salty CSS - Kinda sweet but yet spicy CSS-in-JS library

In the world of frontend dev is there anything saltier than CSS? Salty CSS is built to provide better developer experience for developers looking for performant and feature rich CSS-in-JS solutions.

Features

• Build time compilation to achieve awesome runtime performance and minimal size
• Next.js, React Server Components, Vite and Webpack support
• Type safety with out of the box TypeScript and ESLint plugin
• Advanced CSS variables configuration to allow smooth token usage
• Style templates to create reusable styles easily

Get started

• Initialize: npx salty-css init [directory]
• Create component: npx salty-css generate [filePath]
• Build: npx salty-css build [directory]

Packages

Note: Fastest way to get started with any framework is npx salty-css init [directory] command

• Next.js → npm install @salty-css/next + Next.js install guide + Next.js example app
• React → npm install @salty-css/react + React install guide + React example code
• Vite → npm install @salty-css/vite + (Vite install guide)
• Webpack → npm install @salty-css/webpack + Guide coming soon
• ESLint → npm install @salty-css/eslint-plugin-core + Guide coming soon
• Core → npm install @salty-css/core (This package contains code for internal use)

Add Salty CSS to your project with salty-css CLI

Initialize Salty CSS for a project

In your existing repository run npx salty-css init [directory] which installs required salty-css packages to the current directory, detects framework in use (current support for vite and next.js) and creates project files to the provided directory. Directory can be left blank if you want files to be created to the current directory. Init will also create .saltyrc.json which contains some metadata for future CLI commands.

Create components

Components can be created with npx salty-css generate [filePath] which then creates a new Salty CSS component file to the specified path. Additional options like --dir, --tag, --name and --className are also supported. Read more about them with npx salty-css generate --help

Build / Compile Salty CSS

If you want to manually build your project that can be done by running npx salty-css build [directory]. Directory is not required as CLI can use default directory defined in .saltyrc.json. Note that build generates css files but Vite / Webpack plugin is still required for full support.

Update Salty CSS packages

To ease the pain of package updates all Salty CSS packages can be updated with npx salty-css update

Manual work

Next.js

1. For Next.js support install npm i @salty-css/next @salty-css/core @salty-css/react
2. Create salty.config.ts to your app directory
3. Add Salty CSS plugin to next.js config

• Next.js 15: In next.config.ts add import for salty plugin import { withSaltyCss } from '@salty-css/next'; and then add withSaltyCss to wrap your nextConfig export like so export default withSaltyCss(nextConfig);
• Next.js 14 and older: In next.config.js add import for salty plugin const { withSaltyCss } = require('@salty-css/next'); and then add withSaltyCss to wrap your nextConfig export like so module.exports = withSaltyCss(nextConfig);

4. Make sure that salty.config.ts and next.config.ts are in the same folder!
5. Build saltygen directory by running your app once or with cli npx salty-css build [directory]
6. Import global styles from saltygen/index.css to some global css file with @import 'insert_path_to_index_css';.

Check out Next.js demo project or react example code

React

1. Install related dependencies: npm i @salty-css/core @salty-css/react
2. Create salty.config.ts to your app directory
3. Configure your build tool to support Salty CSS (Vite or Webpack)

Check out react example code

Vite

1. For Vite support install npm i @salty-css/vite @salty-css/core
2. In vite.config add import for salty plugin import { saltyPlugin } from '@salty-css/vite'; and then add saltyPlugin(__dirname) to your vite configuration plugins
3. Make sure that salty.config.ts and vite.config.ts are in the same folder!
4. Build saltygen directory by running your app once or with cli npx salty-css build [directory]
5. Import global styles from saltygen/index.css to some global css file with @import 'insert_path_to_index_css';.

Create components

1. Create salty components with styled only inside files that end with .css.ts, .salty.ts .styled.ts or .styles.ts

Code examples

Basic usage example with Button

Salty config

import { defineConfig } from '@salty-css/core/config';

export const config = defineConfig({
  variables: {
    colors: {
      brand: '#111',
      highlight: 'yellow',
    },
  },
  global: {
    html: {
      backgroundColor: '#f8f8f8',
    },
  },
});

Your React component file

import { Wrapper } from '../components/wrapper/wrapper.css';
import { Button } from '../components/button/button.css';

export const IndexPage = () => {
  return (
    <Wrapper>
      <Button variant="solid" onClick={() => alert('It is a button.')}>
        Outlined
      </Button>
    </Wrapper>
  );
};

Wrapper (components/wrapper/wrapper.css.ts)

import { styled } from '@salty-css/react/styled';

export const Wrapper = styled('div', {
  base: {
    display: 'block',
    padding: '2vw',
  },
});

Button (components/button/button.css.ts)

import { styled } from '@salty-css/react/styled';

export const Button = styled('button', {
  base: {
    display: 'block',
    padding: `0.6em 1.2em`,
    border: '1px solid currentColor',
    background: 'transparent',
    color: 'currentColor/40',
    cursor: 'pointer',
    transition: '200ms',
    textDecoration: 'none',
    '&:hover': {
      background: 'black',
      borderColor: 'black',
      color: 'white',
    },
    '&:disabled': {
      opacity: 0.25,
      pointerEvents: 'none',
    },
  },
  variants: {
    variant: {
      outlined: {
        // same as default styles
      },
      solid: {
        '&:not(:hover)': {
          background: 'black',
          borderColor: 'black',
          color: 'white',
        },
        '&:hover': {
          background: 'transparent',
          borderColor: 'currentColor',
          color: 'currentColor',
        },
      },
    },
  },
});

More examples coming soon