Variants

Variants allow for a nice balance between simplicity and power, with affordances for both the compiler and the type system.

In a style library you want to be able to succinctly add on conditional values that expand into groups of styles. Variants do just that. Before explaining more on why and how they work, and example:

import { Stack, styled } from 'tamagui' // or '@tamagui/core'

export const Circle = styled(Stack, {
  borderRadius: 100_000_000,

  variants: {
    pin: {
      top: {
        position: 'absolute',
        top: 0,
      },
    },

    centered: {
      true: {
        alignItems: 'center',
        justifyContent: 'center',
      },
    },

    size: {
      '...size': (size, { tokens }) => {
        return {
          width: tokens.size[size] ?? size,
          height: tokens.size[size] ?? size,
        }
      },
    },
  } as const,
})

We can use this styled component like so:

<Circle pin="top" centered size="$lg" />

This component uses a few different types of variants. Below we'll expand on each.

But first, why variants?

Why Variants?

You have two basic options for sharing styles across components: share style objects and then combine them directly into your render function, or allow abstraction in some form.

You can think of StyleSheet.create as "a lot of style objects". While this is nice in that it's simple, it doesn't enforce any rules, which can get you in trouble with both a compiler and a type system.

You end up basically typing props by hand and then doing somewhat arbitrary logic to glue it all together inside a functional component. The types may not map to the actual output, and a compiler will almost certainly get confused or be unable to optimize with any easily unforeseen abstraction.

Variants force you out of the React render function, which means no hooks and a much clearer contract of limitations: at most you take in a value, your design system, and props, and you output a group of styles.

It's nice having this special area just for styling. It keeps your types correct by definition. And it ensures the optimizing compiler can understand your styled components and people on your team won't "de-opt" it on accident.

And because Variants work with the styled function, they nest without adding an extra depth to your render tree. Doing styled(styled()) results in a single React component, and can be optimized and flattened by the compiler as well. Whereas it's quite easy for developers to take an existing functional component and throw in a new one around it, further de-optimizing a compiler and leading to a less clear separation of styled components and regular ones.

Variants

If you need more complex types, or simply prefer a shorter syntax, you can use a single function instead of using the object syntax for variants:

import { Stack, styled } from 'tamagui' // or '@tamagui/core'

export const MyStack = styled(Stack, {
  variants: {
    doubleMargin: (val: number) => ({
      margin: val * 2,
    }),
  } as const,
})

Tamagui also provides a few types of other variant definition patterns that work with tokens or types.

true or false

The special keys true and false will map to a boolean. So the centered prop will be typed to accept true or false, and when true it will apply it's styles.

import { Stack, styled } from 'tamagui' // or '@tamagui/core'

export const MyStack = styled(Stack, {
  variants: {
    selectable: {
      true: {
        userSelect: 'auto',
      },
      false: {
        userSelect: 'none',
      },
    },
  } as const,
})

String, Boolean, Number Variants

You can use a pseudo Typescript syntax for other variants:

• :string - Accepts a string
• :boolean - Accepts a boolean (less precedence than true or false)
• :number - Accepts a number

import { Stack, styled } from 'tamagui' // or '@tamagui/core'

export const ColorfulStack = styled(Stack, {
  variants: {
    color: {
      ':string': (color) => {
        // color is of type "string"
        return {
          color,
          borderColor: color,
        }
      },
    },
  } as const,
})

When you write variants, you have to be explicit so TypeScript and the runtime know exactly which props you accept. This can be especially cumbersome when you want to "gather" all the values of a specific token. For example, without spread variants, if you wanted to have a pad property that accepted all the keys from tokens.size, you'd have to write this:

// in your tamagui.config.ts:
const tokens = createTokens({
  size: {
    sm: 10,
    md: 15,
    lg: 25,
    // ...
  }
  // ... see configuration docs for required tokens
})

export default createTamagui({
  tokens
})

// somewhere in your app:
const MyButton = styled(Stack, {
  variants: {
    pad: {
      sm: {
        padding: tokens.size.sm,
      },
      md: {
        padding: tokens.size.md,
      },
      lg: {
        padding: tokens.size.lg,
      },
      // ...
    }
  } as const
})

// now you can
<MyButton pad="$lg" />

This is verbose, and only gets more verbose if you add more sizes. It would require always updating every component every time you change the tokens.

Spread variants solve this problem. Instead, we can write:

// in your tamagui.config.ts:
const tokens = createTokens({
  size: {
    sm: 10,
    md: 15,
    lg: 25,
    // ...
  }
  // ... see configuration docs for required tokens
})

export default createTamagui({
  tokens
})

// somewhere in your app:
const MyButton = styled(Stack, {
  variants: {
    pad: {
      '...size': (val, { tokens }) => ({
        padding: tokens.size[val]
      }),
    }
  } as const
})

// now you can
<MyButton pad="$lg" />

Spread variants save you from having to define hardcoded styles for every key (sm, md, lg) in your token object. They collect values from any of your top level token categories. So you can only use ...color, ...size, ...space, ...font, ...fontSize, ...lineHeight, ...radius, ...letterSpace, or ...zIndex. They must be prefixed with ... as that is how they are typed properly and assembled for runtime.

Extra properties passed to variants

There's a second argument passed to all variant functions that is a bag-o-goodies that help you use the current tokens, theme, props, and fonts easily.

const SizableText = styled(Text, {
  variants: {
    size: {
      '...size': (size, { tokens, font }) => {
        return {
          fontSize: font?.size,
          lineHeight: font?.lineHeight,
          height: tokens.size[size] ?? size,
        }
      },
    },
  } as const,
})

Which you can use:

<SizableText size="$md">Hello world</SizableText>

The Spread variant function will receive two arguments: the first is the value given to the property ("$lg"), and the second is an object with { theme, tokens, props, font }.

Dynamic variants

If you want full control, a simple function works as a Variant:

const Square = styled(Stack, {
  variants: {
    size: (size: number) => {
      return {
        width: size,
        height: size,
      }
    },
  } as const,
})

Catch-all variants

Much like a dynamic variant, except it lets you use it alongside the other typed variants you need. Use '...' and it will grab all variants that don't match:

import { Stack, styled } from 'tamagui' // or '@tamagui/core'

export const ColorfulStack = styled(Stack, {
  variants: {
    colorful: {
      true: {
        color: 'red',
      },
      '...': (val: string) => {
        // this will catch any other values that don't match
        return {
          color: val,
        }
      },
    },
  } as const,
})

Sometimes you'd like to set a default value for a variant you've just set on your styled() component. Due to the way Typescript types parse from left to right, we can't properly type variants directly on the object you define them on.

The defaultVariants option allows you to set these, properly typed:

const Square = styled(Stack, {
  variants: {
    size: {
      '...size': (size, { tokens }) => {
        // size === '$lg'
        // tokens.size.$lg === 25
        return {
          width: tokens.size[size] ?? size,
          height: tokens.size[size] ?? size,
        }
      },
    },
  } as const,

  // <Square /> will get size '$10' from size tokens automatically
  defaultVariants: {
    size: '$10',
  },
})

Variants have the full power of the Tamagui styling system, including pseudo and media styles:

const SizedText = styled(Text, {
  variants: {
    size: {
      md: {
        fontSize: '$sm',

        $gtMd: {
          fontSize: '$md',
        },

        $gt2xl: {
          fontSize: '$lg',
        },
      },
    },
  } as const,
})

Styled components can access their parent components variants, even in their variants:

const ColorfulText = styled(Text, {
  variants: {
    colored: {
      true: {
        color: '$color',
      },
    },

    large: {
      true: {
        fontSize: '$8',
      },
    },
  } as const,
})

const MyParagraph = styled(ColorfulText, {
  colored: true,

  variants: {
    hero: {
      true: {
        large: true,
      },
    },
  } as const,
})