SVG Sprite for React with Vite

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

Generate the sprite

Choose a folder for the sprite. This example uses assets/app-icons, with source SVG files, including the check.svg used below, in assets/svg-icons.

Create assets/app-icons/svg-sprite.config.json:

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

The input path is relative to the config folder.

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": "vite",
    "prebuild": "npm run sprites",
    "build": "tsc --noEmit && vite build"
  }
}

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="check"
      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.

Vite automatically includes the component styles and 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 and is installed separately:

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

Create svg-sprite.html in the project root:

<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
  <head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8">
    <title>Project icons</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <!-- React root for debugging and previewing the SVG sprite in Viewer -->
    <div id="svg-sprite-viewer"></div>

    <!-- Load the debug script created below -->
    <script type="module" src="/src/svg-sprite-debug.tsx"></script>
  </body>
</html>

Create 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

createRoot(document.getElementById('svg-sprite-viewer')!).render(
  <SpriteViewer sources={sources} title="Project icons" />,
)

Run npm run dev and open /svg-sprite.html.

The standard Vite production build uses only index.html and does not include the Viewer page.

2.9 KiB Raw Blame History

SVG Sprite for React with Vite

Generate the sprite

Use the sprite

Debug and preview

2.9 KiB

Raw Blame History