Using Tailwind CSS with React

This guide shows how to set up Tailwind CSS in your React applications within an Nx workspace.

Installation

For the most up-to-date installation instructions, refer to the official Tailwind CSS documentation:

• Vite projects: Tailwind CSS with Vite
• Next.js projects: Tailwind CSS with Next.js
• Other setups: Tailwind CSS installation guide

Configuring sources for monorepos

Tailwind CSS v4

Tailwind CSS v4 automatically detects classes from source files. However, with the Vite plugin, scanning only covers the app directory. This means classes from workspace libraries won't be included unless you explicitly add them.

Use @source directives to include your library dependencies:

// apps/myapp/src/styles.css
@import 'tailwindcss';

@source "../../../libs/ui";
@source "../../../libs/shared";

Automating @source directives

Manually maintaining @source directives is tedious and error-prone. Use @juristr/nx-tailwind-sync to automate this based on your project's dependency graph.

Install the package:

npm install @juristr/nx-tailwind-sync

Register the sync generator for your application's build and dev targets:

{
  "name": "myapp",
  "nx": {
    "targets": {
      "build": {
        "syncGenerators": ["@juristr/nx-tailwind-sync:source-directives"]
      },
      "dev": {
        "syncGenerators": ["@juristr/nx-tailwind-sync:source-directives"]
      }
    }
  }
}

{
  "name": "myapp",
  "targets": {
    "build": {
      "syncGenerators": ["@juristr/nx-tailwind-sync:source-directives"]
    },
    "dev": {
      "syncGenerators": ["@juristr/nx-tailwind-sync:source-directives"]
    }
  }
}

When you run nx build myapp or nx dev myapp, the sync generator analyzes your dependency graph and updates your stylesheet with the correct @source directives automatically.

For more details on why this is necessary and how to build your own sync generator, see Tailwind v4 with Vite in an NPM Workspace.

Tailwind CSS v3

For Tailwind CSS v3, the content property should be configured to include glob patterns that cover your project and its dependencies:

// apps/my-app/tailwind.config.js
const { join } = require('path');

module.exports = {
  content: [
    join(__dirname, '{src,pages,components,app}/**/*.{ts,tsx,js,jsx}'),
    join(__dirname, '../../libs/**/*.{ts,tsx,js,jsx}'),
  ],
  theme: {
    extend: {},
  },
  plugins: [],
};

You can adjust the glob patterns based on your workspace structure. For example, you can be more selective by targeting individual libraries such as libs/my-lib rather than all libraries (libs). To learn how to automatically sync library dependencies with Tailwind sources, watch our video Never Update Tailwind Glob Patterns Manually Again.