Mix tasks for installing and invoking tailwindcss via the stand-alone tailwindcss cli
Note: The stand-alone Tailwind client bundles first-class Tailwind packages within the precompiled executable. For third-party Tailwind plugin support (e.g. DaisyUI), the node package must be used. See the Tailwind Node.js installation instructions if you require third-party plugin support.
If you are going to build assets in production, then you add
tailwind
as dependency on all environments but only start it
in dev:
def deps do
[
{:tailwind, "~> 0.3", runtime: Mix.env() == :dev}
]
end
However, if your assets are precompiled during development, then it only needs to be a dev dependency:
def deps do
[
{:tailwind, "~> 0.3", only: :dev}
]
end
Once installed, change your config/config.exs
to pick your
Tailwind version of choice:
config :tailwind, version: "4.0.0"
Note that :tailwind
0.3+ supports Tailwind v4+. If you need to use Tailwind v3, use
{:tailwind, "~> 0.2.0", only: :dev}
instead, and refer to the README in the 0.2 branch.
Now you can install Tailwind by running:
$ mix tailwind.install
or if your platform isn't officially supported by Tailwind, you can supply a third party path to the binary the installer wants (beware that we cannot guarantee the compatibility of any third party executable):
$ mix tailwind.install https://people.freebsd.org/~dch/pub/tailwind/v3.2.6/tailwindcss-freebsd-x64
And invoke Tailwind with:
$ mix tailwind default
The executable is kept at _build/tailwind-TARGET
.
Where TARGET
is your system target architecture.
The first argument to tailwind
is the execution profile.
You can define multiple execution profiles with the current
directory, the OS environment, and default arguments to the
tailwind
task:
config :tailwind,
version: "4.0.0",
default: [
args: ~w(
--input=assets/css/app.css
--output=priv/static/assets/app.css
),
cd: Path.expand("..", __DIR__)
]
When mix tailwind default
is invoked, the task arguments will be appended
to the ones configured above. Note profiles must be configured in your
config/config.exs
, as tailwind
runs without starting your application
(and therefore it won't pick settings in config/runtime.exs
).
Note that applications generated with Phoenix older than 1.8 still use Tailwind v3 by default. If you're using Tailwind v3 please refer to the README in the v0.2 branch instead.
To add Tailwind v4 to an application using Phoenix, first add this package
as a dependency in your mix.exs
:
def deps do
[
{:phoenix, "~> 1.7"},
{:tailwind, "~> 0.3", runtime: Mix.env() == :dev}
]
end
Also, in mix.exs
, add tailwind
to the assets.deploy
alias for deployments (with the --minify
option):
"assets.deploy": ["tailwind default --minify", ..., "phx.digest"]
Now let's change config/config.exs
to tell tailwind
to build our css bundle into priv/static/assets
.
We'll also give it our assets/css/app.css
as our css entry point:
config :tailwind,
version: "4.0.0",
default: [
args: ~w(
--input=assets/css/app.css
--output=priv/static/assets/app.css
),
cd: Path.expand("..", __DIR__)
]
Make sure the "assets" directory from priv/static is listed in the :only option for Plug.Static in your lib/my_app_web/endpoint.ex
If your Phoenix application is using an umbrella structure, you should specify the web application's asset directory in the configuration:
config :tailwind,
version: "4.0.0",
default: [
args: ...,
cd: Path.expand("../apps/<folder_ending_with_web>", __DIR__)
]
For development, we want to enable watch mode. So find the watchers
configuration in your config/dev.exs
and add:
tailwind: {Tailwind, :install_and_run, [:default, ~w(--watch)]}
Note we are enabling the file system watcher.
Finally, run the command:
$ mix tailwind.install
This command installs Tailwind and updates your assets/css/app.css
and assets/js/app.js
with the necessary changes to start using Tailwind
right away. It also generates a default configuration file called
assets/tailwind.config.js
for you. This is the file we referenced
when we configured tailwind
in config/config.exs
. See
mix help tailwind.install
to learn more.
For a typical Phoenix application, updating from Tailwind v3 to v4 requires the following steps:
-
Update the
:tailwind
library to version 0.3+defp deps do [ - {:tailwind, "~> 0.2", runtime: Mix.env() == :dev}, + {:tailwind, "~> 0.3", runtime: Mix.env() == :dev}, ] end
-
Adjust the configuration to run Tailwind from the root of your repo (or the web app in an umbrella project):
config :tailwind, - version: "3.4.13", + version: "4.0.0", default: [ args: ~w( - --config=tailwind.config.js - --input=css/app.css - --output=../priv/static/assets/app.css + --config=assets/tailwind.config.js + --input=assets/css/app.css + --output=priv/static/assets/app.css ), - cd: Path.expand("../assets", __DIR__) + cd: Path.expand("..", __DIR__) ]
This allows Tailwind to automatically pick up classes from your project. Tailwind v4 does not require explicit configuration of sources.
-
Adjust the Tailwind imports in your app.css
-@import "tailwindcss/base"; -@import "tailwindcss/components"; -@import "tailwindcss/utilities"; +@import "tailwindcss";
-
Follow the Tailwind v4 upgrade guide to address deprecations.
-
Optional: remove the
tailwind.config.js
and switch to the new CSS based configuration. For more information, see the previously mentioned upgrade guide and the documentation on functions and directives.
Copyright (c) 2022 Chris McCord. Copyright (c) 2021 Wojtek Mach, José Valim.
tailwind source code is licensed under the MIT License.