svg-sprites/docs/en/guides/react-webpack.md

SVG Sprite for React with Webpack 5

A quick guide to creating an SVG sprite in a React application built with Webpack 5.

Generate the sprite

Choose a directory for the future SVG sprite, for example assets/app-icons, and create svg-sprite.config.json inside it. In input, specify the path to existing SVG files relative to the configuration file. There is no need to move or copy the icons.

Example configuration:

{
  "mode": "react@webpack",
  "name": "app",
  "input": "../svg-icons/**/*.svg"
}

The package does not need to be a project dependency: generation runs through npx.

Add generation commands to package.json. Generated files are excluded from Git by default, so predev and prebuild rebuild the sprite before every start and build:

{
  "scripts": {
    "sprites": "npx --yes @gromlab/svg-sprites assets/app-icons/svg-sprite.config.json",
    "predev": "npm run sprites",
    "dev": "webpack serve --mode development",
    "prebuild": "npm run sprites",
    "build": "webpack --mode production"
  }
}

Use the sprite

The value name: "app" creates the React component AppIcon.

Create the entry point assets/app-icons/index.ts:

export * from './.svg-sprite/index.js'

Use the component in your application:

import { AppIcon } from '../assets/app-icons'

export function SaveIcon() {
  return (
    <AppIcon
      icon="icon-name"
      width={24}
      height={24}
      role="img"
      aria-label="Done"
      style={{
        color: '#334155',
        '--icon-color-2': '#f59e0b',
      }}
    />
  )
}

The icon prop accepts source SVG file names without the extension. A monochrome icon inherits color, while colors in a multicolor icon are overridden with --icon-color-N.

The component uses CSS Modules. If the project does not process them yet, install the loaders:

npm install --save-dev style-loader css-loader

Then add a rule with a default export to webpack.config.js:

{
  test: /\.module\.css$/i,
  use: [
    'style-loader',
    {
      loader: 'css-loader',
      options: { modules: { namedExport: false } },
    },
  ],
}

Webpack 5 automatically adds sprite.svg to the production build.

Debug and preview

Viewer displays all icons on one page so you can check their rendering, change colors, and inspect the related CSS variables. It is only needed for development.

Install Viewer:

npm install --save-dev @gromlab/svg-sprites

Create the entry src/svg-sprite-debug.tsx:

import { createRoot } from 'react-dom/client'
import { SpriteViewer } from '@gromlab/svg-sprites/react'

const sources = [
  () => import('../assets/app-icons/.svg-sprite/svg-sprite.manifest.js'),
] as const

const container = document.createElement('div')
document.body.append(container)

createRoot(container).render(
  <SpriteViewer sources={sources} title="Project icons" />,
)

Add the script to the main entry only in development mode. Keep the rest of your webpack.config.js settings:

export default (_env, argv) => ({
  // Other Webpack settings.
  entry: [
    './src/main.tsx',
    ...(argv.mode === 'development' ? ['./src/svg-sprite-debug.tsx'] : []),
  ],
})

Run npm run dev. Viewer appears on the application's main page and is not included in the production build.