Microfrontend CSS Boundary

Block outside CSS from affecting your microfrontend application.

Notes

This library allows you to completely isolate the CSS of your microfrontend application from the host application by dynamically placing it inside a Web Component (i.e. using the shadow DOM browser feature). The isolation enables you to use different versions of libraries with global CSS rules (such as Bootstrap) in parallel. It can be helpful if you need to split an old monolithic application into microfrontends or for testing purposes. Currently the library works only in conjunction with style-loader (mini-css-extract-plugin is not yet supported).

How to use

Warning

This library is intened for use inside an embedded microfrontend application. It is not intended to be used in the host (a.k.a. shell) application.

In order for the CSS imports to work properly inside the microfrontend application first you need to pass the insert function from the library to the style-loader options in the Webpack configuration:

// webpack.config.js
const { insert } = require('css-boundary');

module.exports = {
  // ...
  module: {
    // ...
    rules: [
      // ...
      {
        test: /\.css$/i,
        use: [
          {
            loader: 'style-loader',
            options: {
              insert,
            },
          },
          'css-loader',
        ],
      },
    ],
  },
};

Then you have two options:

1. If you use React the simplest way is to use the CssBoundary component at the root of your application

// App.jsx
import { CssBoundary } from 'css-boundary';

const App = () => (
  <CssBoundary>
    {/* Application code */}
  </CssBoundary>
);

The CSSBoundary component can be passed an optional init prop to control the behavior of the attachShadow function. init will be passed directly to attachShadow so it should have the expected properties. If init is not passed then by default mode will be set to "open" and delegatesFocus to false.

Warning

Use React version 17 or higher in the microfrontend application. Lower versions of React do not re-render properly when inside a shadow DOM.

2. If you don't use React or you wish to have more fine control you can use the createShadowInstance and deleteShadowInstance functions

// SomeComponent.js
import { createShadowInstance, deleteShadowInstance } from 'css-boundary';

// After mount:
const appPlaceholder = createShadowInstance(parentElementId); // Creates a shadow DOM and attaches it to the HTML element, to which you have set the specified id.

// appPlaceholder is where you can inject your HTML. For example:
appPlaceholder.innerHTML = '<div>My application</div>';

// On unmount:
deleteShadowInstance(parentElementId); // parentElementId is the id where the shadow DOM was attached. It should be the same id used in createShadowInstance

The createShadowInstance function can be passed an optional second argument - an init object to control the behavior of the attachShadow function. init will be passed directly to attachShadow so it should have the expected properties. If init is not passed then by default mode will be set to "open" and delegatesFocus to false.

Both ways will render the microfronend application inside a shadow DOM attached to the app injection HTML element. Any global or local CSS used anywhere in the embedded application will be placed inside the shadowRoot and will not affect or be affected by the host application.