TailwindCSS <noscript>

Apply Tailwind styles only when JavaScript is enabled.

Why

When animating an element above the fold with JavaScript, the default styles of the element may be briefly visible before JavaScript loads and applies the initial animation styles. Something as simple as fading-in the opacity of an element requires to either…

• Settle with an ugly flash of opaque content (🤢)
• Make the initial animation styles the default ones and disappoint your non-JavaScript-using visitors (😕)
• Go with the previous option and manually reset the styles with a noscript tag (🤮)

Going with the noscript approach with tailwindcss can be quite cumbersome. This plugin can be used as an alternative method to maintain ergonomics in exchange for a minuscule amount of render-blocking JavaScript.

Installation

npm i tailwindcss-noscript
# OR
yarn add tailwindcss-noscript
# OR
pnpm i tailwindcss-noscript

Usage

Add the plugin to the plugins array in your tailwindcss configuration file:

import type { Config } from "tailwindcss"
import noscriptPlugin from "tailwindcss-noscript"

export default {
  // ...
  plugins: [
    // ...
    noscriptPlugin,
  ]
} satisfies Config

You now need to add a script tag to your head with the following content:

import { script } from "tailwindcss-noscript"

<script src={script} />

If you are working with vanilla HTML, you can also copy and paste it:

<script src="data:text/javascript;base64,KGZ1bmN0aW9uKCl7ZG9jdW1lbnQuZG9jdW1lbnRFbGVtZW50LmNsYXNzTGlzdC5hZGQoImpzIik7fSgpKQ=="></script>

That's it. You can now add JS-only styles using the js variant prefix:

<div src="js:opacity-0 js:translate-y-1/2 md:js:translate-y-full" />

Note When applying multiple variants, place the js prefix in the last place.

Acknowledgements

• next-themes
  The mechanism to prevent CLS was inspired by next-themes. I also took the idea of compressing the script with base64 from next-real-viewport (the folks at Basement Studio make lovely things 💖).