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Slot Recipes

Learn how to style multiple parts components with slot recipes.

Overview

Slot Recipes come in handy when you need to apply style variations to multiple parts of a component.

A slot recipe consists of these properties:

  • className: The className prefix to attach to the component slot
  • slots: An array of component parts to style
  • base: The base styles per slot
  • variants: The different visual styles for each slot
  • defaultVariants: The default variant for the component
  • compoundVariants: The compound variant combination and style overrides for each slot.

Defining the recipe

Use the defineSlotRecipe identity function to create a slot recipe.

checkbox.recipe.ts

import { defineSlotRecipe } from "@chakra-ui/react"

export const checkboxSlotRecipe = defineSlotRecipe({
  slots: ["root", "control", "label"],
  base: {
    root: { display: "flex", alignItems: "center", gap: "2" },
    control: { borderWidth: "1px", borderRadius: "sm" },
    label: { marginStart: "2" },
  },
  variants: {
    size: {
      sm: {
        control: { width: "8", height: "8" },
        label: { fontSize: "sm" },
      },
      md: {
        control: { width: "10", height: "10" },
        label: { fontSize: "md" },
      },
    },
  },
})

Using the recipe

There are two ways to use the recipe in a component:

  • Directly in the component with useSlotRecipe
  • As a compound component (recommended) with createSlotRecipeContext
info
Adding the "use client" directive is required to use the useSlotRecipe hook or createSlotRecipeContext function. This is because they rely on react hooks like useContext and useInsertionEffect under the hood.

Directly in component

Use the useSlotRecipe hook to get the recipe for a component. Then, call the recipe with its variant props to get the styles.

checkbox.tsx

"use client"

import { chakra, useSlotRecipe } from "@chakra-ui/react"
import { checkboxSlotRecipe } from "./checkbox.recipe"

export const Checkbox = (props) => {
  const { size, ...restProps } = props

  const recipe = useSlotRecipe({ recipe: checkboxSlotRecipe })
  const styles = recipe({ size })

  return (
    <chakra.label css={styles.root}>
      <chakra.input type="checkbox" css={styles.control} {...restProps} />
      <chakra.span css={styles.label}>Checkbox Label</chakra.span>
    </chakra.label>
  )
}

splitVariantProps

Notice how the size prop was destructured from the props to be passed to the recipe. A smarter approach would be to automatically split the recipe props from the component props.

To do that, use the recipe.splitVariantProps function to split the recipe props from the component props.

checkbox.tsx

"use client"

import { chakra, useSlotRecipe } from "@chakra-ui/react"
import { checkboxSlotRecipe } from "./checkbox.recipe"

export const Checkbox = (props) => {
  const recipe = useSlotRecipe({ recipe: checkboxSlotRecipe })
  const [recipeProps, restProps] = recipe.splitVariantProps(props)
  const styles = recipe(recipeProps)

  //...
}

TypeScript

To infer the recipe variant prop types, use the RecipeVariantProps type helper.

checkbox.tsx

import type { RecipeVariantProps } from "@chakra-ui/react"
import { checkboxSlotRecipe } from "./checkbox.recipe"

type CheckboxVariantProps = RecipeVariantProps<typeof checkboxSlotRecipe>

export interface CheckboxProps
  extends React.PropsWithChildren<CheckboxVariantProps> {}

Create compound components

Pass the recipe to the createSlotRecipeContext function to create a slot recipe context.

Then, use the withProvider and withContext functions to create the compound components that share the same context.

info
You will need to manually type the generics for withProvider and withContext. This approach is designed to optimize TypeScript performance. Auto-inference, while convenient, would slow down TypeScript compilation due to the complexity of the types involved.

checkbox.tsx

"use client"

import { createSlotRecipeContext } from "@chakra-ui/react"
import { checkboxSlotRecipe } from "./checkbox.recipe"

const { withProvider, withContext } = createSlotRecipeContext({
  recipe: checkboxSlotRecipe,
})

interface CheckboxRootProps
  extends HTMLChakraProps<
    "label",
    RecipeVariantProps<typeof checkboxSlotRecipe>
  > {}
export const CheckboxRoot = withProvider<HTMLLabelElement, CheckboxRootProps>(
  "label",
  "root",
)

interface CheckboxControlProps extends HTMLChakraProps<"input"> {}
export const CheckboxControl = withContext<
  HTMLInputElement,
  CheckboxControlProps
>("input", "control")

interface CheckboxLabelProps extends HTMLChakraProps<"span"> {}
export const CheckboxLabel = withContext<HTMLSpanElement, CheckboxLabelProps>(
  "span",
  "label",
)

Pass the variant props to the "root" component that to apply the styles.

Note: The root component is the one that used the withProvider function.

app.tsx

const App = () => {
  return (
    <CheckboxRoot size="md">
      <CheckboxControl />
      <CheckboxLabel />
    </CheckboxRoot>
  )
}

unstyled prop

This approach supports the use of the unstyled prop to remove the styles applied by the recipe.

checkbox.tsx

<CheckboxRoot unstyled>
  <CheckboxControl />
  <CheckboxLabel />
</CheckboxRoot>

TypeScript

To infer the recipe variant prop types, use the RecipeVariantProps type helper.

import type { RecipeVariantProps, UnstyledProp } from "@chakra-ui/react"
import { checkboxSlotRecipe } from "./checkbox.recipe"

type CheckboxVariantProps = RecipeVariantProps<typeof checkboxSlotRecipe>

export interface CheckboxProps
  extends React.PropsWithChildren<CheckboxVariantProps>,
    UnstyledProp {}

Compound Variants

Use the compoundVariants property to define a set of variants that are applied based on a combination of other variants.

checkbox.recipe.ts

import { defineSlotRecipe } from "@chakra-ui/react"

export const checkboxRecipe = defineSlotRecipe({
  slots: ["root", "control", "label"],
  base: {},
  variants: {
    size: {
      sm: {},
      md: {},
    },
    visual: {
      contained: {},
      outline: {},
    },
  },
  compoundVariants: [
    {
      size: "sm",
      visual: "outline",
      css: {
        control: { borderWidth: "1px" },
        label: { color: "green.500" },
      },
    },
  ],
})

Targeting a slot

In some cases, targeting a slot by className might be needed.

  • Set the className property in the config
  • The naming convention is ${className}__${slot}

checkbox.recipe.ts

import { defineSlotRecipe } from "@chakra-ui/react"

export const checkboxRecipe = defineSlotRecipe({
  className: "checkbox",
  slots: ["root", "control", "label"],
  base: {
    root: {
      bg: "blue.500",
      _hover: {
        "& .checkbox__label": { color: "white" },
      },
    },
  },
})

Theme Usage

To use the recipe in a reusable manner, move it to the system theme and add it to theme.slotRecipes property.

No need to add the "use client" directive when using the recipe in the theme.

theme.ts

import { createSystem, defineConfig } from "@chakra-ui/react"
import { checkboxSlotRecipe } from "./checkbox.recipe"

const config = defineConfig({
  theme: {
    slotRecipes: {
      checkbox: checkboxSlotRecipe,
    },
  },
})

export default createSystem(config)

TypeScript

Use the CLI to generate the types for the recipe.

npx @chakra-ui/cli typegen ./theme.ts

Then, import the generated types in your component.

checkbox.tsx

import type { SlotRecipeProps, UnstyledProp } from "@chakra-ui/react"

export interface CheckboxProps
  extends SlotRecipeProps<"checkbox">,
    UnstyledProp {}

Update code

If you use the recipe directly in your component, update the useRecipe to use the key property to get the recipe from the theme.

checkbox.tsx

const Checkbox = () => {
-  const recipe = useRecipe({ recipe: checkboxRecipe })
+  const recipe = useRecipe({ key: "checkbox" })
  // ...
}

If you create a compound component, update the createSlotRecipeContext to use the key property.

checkbox.tsx

const { withProvider, withContext } = createSlotRecipeContext({
-  recipe: checkboxRecipe,
+  key: "checkbox",
})

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