Tailwind CSS Development

When to Apply

Activate this skill when:

Adding styles to components or pages
Working with responsive design
Implementing dark mode
Extracting repeated patterns into components
Debugging spacing or layout issues

Documentation

Use search-docs for detailed Tailwind CSS v4 patterns and documentation.

Basic Usage

Use Tailwind CSS classes to style HTML. Check and follow existing Tailwind conventions in the project before introducing new patterns.
Offer to extract repeated patterns into components that match the project's conventions (e.g., Blade, JSX, Vue).
Consider class placement, order, priority, and defaults. Remove redundant classes, add classes to parent or child elements carefully to reduce repetition, and group elements logically.

Tailwind CSS v4 Specifics

Always use Tailwind CSS v4 and avoid deprecated utilities.
corePlugins is not supported in Tailwind v4.

CSS-First Configuration

In Tailwind v4, configuration is CSS-first using the @theme directive — no separate tailwind.config.js file is needed:

<code-snippet name="CSS-First Config" lang="css"> @theme { --color-brand: oklch(0.72 0.11 178); } </code-snippet>

Import Syntax

In Tailwind v4, import Tailwind with a regular CSS @import statement instead of the @tailwind directives used in v3:

<code-snippet name="v4 Import Syntax" lang="diff"> - @tailwind base; - @tailwind components; - @tailwind utilities; + @import "tailwindcss"; </code-snippet>

Replaced Utilities

Tailwind v4 removed deprecated utilities. Use the replacements shown below. Opacity values remain numeric.

Deprecated	Replacement
bg-opacity-*	bg-black/*
text-opacity-*	text-black/*
border-opacity-*	border-black/*
divide-opacity-*	divide-black/*
ring-opacity-*	ring-black/*
placeholder-opacity-*	placeholder-black/*
flex-shrink-*	shrink-*
flex-grow-*	grow-*
overflow-ellipsis	text-ellipsis
decoration-slice	box-decoration-slice
decoration-clone	box-decoration-clone

Spacing

Use gap utilities instead of margins for spacing between siblings:

<code-snippet name="Gap Utilities" lang="html"> <div class="flex gap-8"> <div>Item 1</div> <div>Item 2</div> </div> </code-snippet>

Dark Mode

If existing pages and components support dark mode, new pages and components must support it the same way, typically using the dark: variant:

<code-snippet name="Dark Mode" lang="html"> <div class="bg-white dark:bg-gray-900 text-gray-900 dark:text-white"> Content adapts to color scheme </div> </code-snippet>

Common Patterns

Flexbox Layout

<code-snippet name="Flexbox Layout" lang="html"> <div class="flex items-center justify-between gap-4"> <div>Left content</div> <div>Right content</div> </div> </code-snippet>

Grid Layout

<code-snippet name="Grid Layout" lang="html"> <div class="grid grid-cols-1 md:grid-cols-2 lg:grid-cols-3 gap-6"> <div>Card 1</div> <div>Card 2</div> <div>Card 3</div> </div> </code-snippet>

Common Pitfalls

Using deprecated v3 utilities (bg-opacity-, flex-shrink-, etc.)
Using @tailwind directives instead of @import "tailwindcss"
Trying to use tailwind.config.js instead of CSS @theme directive
Using margins for spacing between siblings instead of gap utilities
Forgetting to add dark mode variants when the project uses dark mode

tailwindcss-development