Nextjs TailwindCSS Typescript Starter

I had a chance to integrate TailwindCSS into our existing AngularJS (Bootstrap) app and use it for developing new features. Even though it is hard for the migration, It is incredibly rewarding (Also for migrating Gulp to Webpack and start using TypeScript 😌)

Today I'm checking out Next.js by setting up a starter template with Nextjs, TailwindCSS, and Typescript.

Source code for the template can be found here Github.

Create new next.js app

Run the following command in your Terminal and follow the wizard. As a result, a new directory containing the app will be created for you.

npx create-next-app

Start the app

Run the development server and Open http://localhost:3000 with your browser to see the result.

npm run dev

Create src directory and move pages into src (Optional)

The src directory is very common in many apps and Next.js supports it by default.

cd <your-app-directory>
mkdir src
mv pages src

Support TypeScript

Next.js supports TypeScript out of the box. More info here

touch tsconfig.json
npm i -D typescript @types/react @types/node

Restart development server by running npm run dev, you will see this in the console: We detected TypeScript in your project and created a tsconfig.json file for you.

Test TypeScript support by renaming index.js to index.tsx and restart development server

mv src/pages/index.js src/pages/index.tsx

Integrate TailwindCSS

Install TailwindCSS, postcss and PurgeCSS. More information can be found in the official TailwindCSS documentation. Installation, Optimizing for Production

npm i -D tailwindcss postcss-import autoprefixer

Configure PostCSS

Create postcss.config.js

touch postcss.config.js

module.exports = {
  plugins: [
    'tailwindcss',
    'autoprefixer',
  ]
}

Configure PurgeCSS for production build

Create tailwind.config.js to enable PurgeCSS and customize your tailwind. By default, Tailwind will only remove unused classes that it generates itself. That means the unused styles from your custom CSS or from third-party CSS will not be removed. More info can be found here Optimizing for Production

npx tailwindcss init

module.exports = {
  purge: ['./src/components/**/*.{ts,tsx,js,jsx}', './src/pages/**/*.{ts,tsx,js,jsx}'],
  theme: {
    extend: {},
  },
  variants: {},
  plugins: [],
}

Add TailwindCSS to your css

Create src/styles/index.css.

mkdir src/styles && touch src/styles/index.css

@import 'tailwindcss/base';
@import 'tailwindcss/components';

/* Your own custom component styles */

@import 'tailwindcss/utilities';

Create a src/pages/_app.tsx file Then add styles/index.css to your application by import the CSS file.

touch src/pages/_app.tsx

import { AppProps } from 'next/app'
import '../styles/index.css'

function MyApp({ Component, pageProps }: AppProps) {
  return <Component {...pageProps} />
}

export default MyApp

Enjoy the power of Next.js TailwindCSS and TypeScript ♥