By default, any configuration you add in your own tailwind.config.js file is intelligently merged with the default configuration, with your own configuration acting as a set of overrides and extensions.

The presets option lets you specify a different configuration to use as your base, making it easy to package up a set of customizations that you’d like to reuse across projects.

module.exports = {
  presets: [
    require('@acmecorp/tailwind-base')
  ],
  // ...
}

This can be very useful for teams that manage multiple Tailwind projects for the same brand where they want a single source of truth for colors, fonts, and other common customizations.

Creating a preset

Presets are just regular Tailwind configuration objects, taking the exact same shape as the configuration you would add in your tailwind.config.js file.

// Example preset
module.exports = {
  theme: {
    colors: {
      blue: {
        light: '#85d7ff',
        DEFAULT: '#1fb6ff',
        dark: '#009eeb',
      },
      pink: {
        light: '#ff7ce5',
        DEFAULT: '#ff49db',
        dark: '#ff16d1',
      },
      gray: {
        darkest: '#1f2d3d',
        dark: '#3c4858',
        DEFAULT: '#c0ccda',
        light: '#e0e6ed',
        lightest: '#f9fafc',
      }
    },
    fontFamily: {
      sans: ['Graphik', 'sans-serif'],
    },
    extend: {
      flexGrow: {
        2: '2',
        3: '3',
      },
      zIndex: {
        60: '60',
        70: '70',
        80: '80',
        90: '90',
        100: '100',
      },
    }
  },
  plugins: [
    require('@tailwindcss/typography'),
    require('@tailwindcss/aspect-ratio'),
  ],
}

As you can see, presets can contain all of the configuration options you’re used to, including theme overrides and extensions, adding plugins, configuring a prefix, and so on. Read about how configurations are merged for more details.

Assuming this preset was saved at ./my-preset.js, you would use it by adding it to the tailwind.config.js file in your actual project under the presets key:

module.exports = {
  presets: [
    require('./my-preset.js')
  ],
  // Customizations specific to this project would go here
  theme: {
    extend: {
      minHeight: {
        48: '12rem',
      }
    }
  },
}

By default, presets themselves extend Tailwind’s default configuration just like your own configuration would. If you’d like to create a preset that completely replaces the default configuration, include an empty presets key in the preset itself:

// Example preset
module.exports = {
  presets: [],
  theme: {
    // ...
  },
  plugins: [
    // ...
  ],
}

For more information, read about disabling the default configuration.

Merging logic in-depth

Project-specific configurations (those found in your tailwind.config.js file) are merged against presets the same way they are merged against the default configuration.

The following options in tailwind.config.js simply replace the same option if present in a preset:

• content
• darkMode
• prefix
• important
• variantOrder
• separator
• safelist

The remaining options are each carefully merged in the way that makes the most sense for that option, explained in more detail below.

Theme

The theme object is merged shallowly, with top-level keys in tailwind.config.js replacing the same top-level keys in any presets. The exception to this is the extend key, which is collected across all configurations and applied on top of the rest of the theme configuration.

Learn more about how the theme option works in the theme configuration documentation.

Presets

The presets array is merged across configurations, allowing presets to include their own presets, which can also include their own presets.

Plugins

The plugins array is merged across configurations to make it possible for a preset to register plugins while also allowing you to add additional plugins at the project-level.

This means it’s not possible to disable a plugin that has been added by a preset. If you find yourself wanting to disable a plugin in a preset, it’s a sign that you should probably remove that plugin from the preset and include it on a project-by-project basis instead, or split your preset into two presets.

Core plugins

The corePlugins option behaves differently depending on whether you configure it as an object or as an array.

If you configure corePlugins as an object, it is merged across configurations.

module.exports = {
  // ...
  corePlugins: {
    float: false,
  },
}

module.exports = {
  presets: [
    require('./my-preset.js'),
  ],
  // This configuration will be merged
  corePlugins: {
    cursor: false
  }
}

If you configure corePlugins as an array, it replaces any corePlugins configuration provided by your configured preset(s).

module.exports = {
  // ...
  corePlugins: {
    float: false,
  },
}

module.exports = {
  presets: [
    require('./example-preset.js'),
  ],
  // This will replace the configuration in the preset
  corePlugins: ['float', 'padding', 'margin']
}

Extending multiple presets

The presets option is an array and can accept multiple presets. This is useful if you want to split your reusable customizations up into composable chunks that can be imported independently.

module.exports = {
  presets: [
    require('@acmecorp/tailwind-colors'),
    require('@acmecorp/tailwind-fonts'),
    require('@acmecorp/tailwind-spacing'),
  ]
}

When adding multiple presets, it’s important to note that if they overlap in any way, they are resolved the same way your own customizations are resolved against a preset, and the last configuration wins.

For example, if both of these configurations provided a custom color palette (and were not using extend), the color palette from configuration-b would be used:

module.exports = {
  presets: [
    require('@acmecorp/configuration-a'),
    require('@acmecorp/configuration-b'),
  ]
}

Disabling the default configuration

If you’d like to completely disable the default configuration and start with no base configuration at all, set presets to an empty array:

module.exports = {
  presets: [],
  // ...
}

This will completely disable all of Tailwind’s defaults, so no colors, font families, font sizes, spacing values, etc. will be generated at all.

You can also do this from within a preset if you’d like your preset to provide a complete design system on its own that doesn’t extend Tailwind’s defaults:

module.exports = {
  presets: [],
  // ...
}

module.exports = {
  presets: [
    require('./my-preset.js')
  ],
  // ...
}