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CSS

Rspack has built-in support for CSS and provides several features to support CSS bundling.

Enabling CSS support

You can choose from the following options:

Built-in CSS support

Rspack supports the following four CSS Modules types which you can configure manually:

  • css/auto: Automatically determines whether a file is a normal CSS file or CSS Modules based on the file extension. Files ending with *.module.css or *.modules.css are treated as CSS Modules.
  • css: Used to handle normal CSS files without CSS Modules features.
  • css/global: Used to handle CSS Modules in global scope mode.
  • css/module: Used to handle CSS Modules.

The difference between css/auto, css/global, and css/module is how CSS Modules scope affects the generated CSS:

  • css/auto chooses the behavior by filename. style.css is handled as plain CSS, while style.module.css and style.modules.css are handled like css/module.
  • css/module enables CSS Modules with local scope by default. A selector like .button is renamed in the generated CSS. Use :global(.button) when you want a selector to stay global.
  • css/global enables CSS Modules with global scope by default. A selector like .button stays global. Use :local(.button) when you want a selector to be renamed in the generated CSS.

For example:

style.css
.button {
  color: red;
}

:local(.title) {
  color: blue;
}

With type: 'css', the file is emitted as plain CSS without applying CSS Modules scope transforms.

With type: 'css/module', .button and .title are local selectors and are renamed in the generated CSS. Use :global(.button) if .button should stay global.

With type: 'css/global', .button stays global, while .title is renamed because it is wrapped in :local(...).

The generated CSS would look like this:

css/auto style.css
css/auto style.module.css
css/module style.css
css/global style.css
.button {
  color: red;
}

:local(.title) {
  color: blue;
}

To enable CSS support, add CSS rules to your configuration:

rspack.config.mjs
export default {
  module: {
    rules: [
      {
        test: /\.module\.css$/i,
        type: 'css/module',
      },
      {
        test: /\.global\.css$/i,
        type: 'css/global',
      },
      {
        test: /\.css$/i,
        type: 'css/auto',
      },
    ],
  },
};

You can also configure type: 'css/auto' to customize which files are treated as CSS files. For example, treat .less files as CSS files:

rspack.config.mjs
export default {
  module: {
    rules: [
      {
        test: /\.less$/,
        type: 'css/auto', // 👈
        use: ['less-loader'],
      },
    ],
  },
};

Using CssExtractRspackPlugin

Rspack supports using css-loader and CssExtractRspackPlugin to generate standalone CSS files.

If you are migrating a webpack project that uses mini-css-extract-plugin, it is recommended to replace it with CssExtractRspackPlugin. Their functionality and options are basically the same.

  • Install css-loader:
npm
yarn
pnpm
bun
deno
npm add css-loader -D
  • Add configuration:
rspack.config.mjs
import { rspack } from '@rspack/core';

export default {
  module: {
    rules: [
      {
        test: /\.css$/i,
        use: [rspack.CssExtractRspackPlugin.loader, 'css-loader'],
        type: 'javascript/auto',
      },
    ],
  },
  plugins: [new rspack.CssExtractRspackPlugin({})],
};

Refer to the migration guide to learn how to migrate from webpack.

Tip

CssExtractRspackPlugin cannot be used with type: 'css', type: 'css/auto', type: 'css/global', or type: 'css/module' as these types are provided by native css support.

Using style-loader

Rspack supports using css-loader and style-loader to inject CSS via <style> tags. This method does not generate standalone CSS files but inline the CSS content into JS files.

  • Install css-loader and style-loader:
npm
yarn
pnpm
bun
deno
npm add css-loader style-loader -D
  • Add configuration:
rspack.config.mjs
export default {
  module: {
    rules: [
      {
        test: /\.css$/i,
        use: ['style-loader', 'css-loader'],
        type: 'javascript/auto',
      },
    ],
  },
};
Tip

style-loader cannot be used with type: 'css', type: 'css/auto', type: 'css/global', or type: 'css/module' as these types are provided by native css support.

CSS Modules

CSS Modules is a way of organizing CSS files that localizes the scope of CSS by automatically generating unique identifiers for class names. This allows you to use the same class name in different files without worrying about collisions.

Built-in support

If you enable Built-in CSS support, Rspack will treat files with a *.module.css extension as CSS Modules by default. You can import them into your JavaScript files, and then access each class defined in the CSS file as an export from the module.

index.module.css
.red {
  color: red;
}

You can use namespace import:

index.js
import * as styles from './index.module.css';
document.getElementById('element').className = styles.red;

You can also use named import:

import { red } from './index.module.css';
document.getElementById('element').className = red;

To enable default imports in Rspack, you need to set namedExports to false in your Rspack configuration file. This allows you, when using CSS Modules, to import the entire style module by default import, in addition to namespace imports and named imports:

rspack.config.mjs
export default {
  module: {
    parser: {
      'css/auto': {
        namedExports: false,
      },
    },
  },
};

Now you can use default import:

import styles from './index.module.css';
document.getElementById('element').className = styles.red;
Tip

Rspack provides options to customize the parsing and generation of CSS Modules:

Using css-loader

If you do not enable Rspack's built-in CSS support, you can use css-loader to provide CSS Modules support.

Enable the modules option of css-loader:

rspack.config.mjs
export default {
  module: {
    rules: [
      {
        test: /\.css$/i,
        loader: 'css-loader',
        type: 'javascript/auto',
        options: {
          modules: true,
        },
      },
    ],
  },
};

For more usage, please refer to css-loader - modules.

PostCSS

Rspack supports postcss-loader, which you can configure like this:

npm
yarn
pnpm
bun
deno
npm add postcss postcss-loader -D
rspack.config.mjs
export default {
  module: {
    rules: [
      {
        test: /\.css$/,
        use: [
          {
            loader: 'postcss-loader',
            options: {
              postcssOptions: {
                // ...
              },
            },
          },
        ],
        // set to 'css/auto' if you want to support '*.module.css' as CSS Modules, otherwise set type to 'css'
        type: 'css/auto',
      },
    ],
  },
};

The above configuration will have all *.css files processed by postcss-loader. The output will be passed to Rspack for CSS post-processing.

Sass

Rspack supports sass-loader, which you can configure like this:

npm
yarn
pnpm
bun
deno
npm add sass-embedded sass-loader -D
rspack.config.mjs
export default {
  module: {
    rules: [
      {
        test: /\.(sass|scss)$/,
        use: [
          {
            loader: 'sass-loader',
            options: {
              // using `modern-compiler` and `sass-embedded` together significantly improve build performance,
              // requires `sass-loader >= 14.2.1`
              api: 'modern-compiler',
              implementation: require.resolve('sass-embedded'),
            },
          },
        ],
        // set to 'css/auto' if you want to support '*.module.(scss|sass)' as CSS Modules, otherwise set type to 'css'
        type: 'css/auto',
      },
    ],
  },
};

The above configuration runs all *.sass and *.scss files through the sass-loader and passes the resulting results to Rspack for CSS post-processing.

Less

Rspack supports less-loader, which you can configure like this:

npm
yarn
pnpm
bun
deno
npm add less less-loader -D
rspack.config.mjs
export default {
  module: {
    rules: [
      {
        test: /\.less$/,
        use: [
          {
            loader: 'less-loader',
            options: {
              // ...
            },
          },
        ],
        // set to 'css/auto' if you want to support '*.module.less' as CSS Modules, otherwise set type to 'css'
        type: 'css/auto',
      },
    ],
  },
};

The above configuration runs all *.less files through the less-loader and passes the generated results to Rspack for CSS post-processing.

Tailwind CSS

Tailwind CSS is a CSS framework and design system based on utility class, which can quickly add common styles to components, and support flexible extension of theme styles.

Tailwind CSS documentation provides integration guides for Rspack, please refer to: