tailwind-serve

Compile and serve Tailwind CSS at server startup - no build pipeline needed.

For server apps rendering HTML from JSX or templates at runtime (Elysia, Hono, Express, Fastify, Bun.serve()). If you use Vite or Next.js, use @tailwindcss/vite or @tailwindcss/postcss instead.

Install

bun add @moshyfawn/tailwind-serve

Usage

Create src/styles.css:

@import "tailwindcss";
@source "./";

Then in your server:

import { initTailwind } from "@moshyfawn/tailwind-serve";

const tw = await initTailwind();

// Elysia
app.get("/styles.css", () => tw.response());

// Hono
app.get("/styles.css", (c) => tw.response());

// Bun.serve
if (url.pathname === "/styles.css") return tw.response();

Compiles once at startup, watches for changes in dev, caches with immutable headers in production.

API

initTailwind(options?): Promise<TailwindServeInstance>

Returns an instance with:

• css - compiled CSS string
• response() - Response with text/css and cache headers
• rebuild() - force recompilation
• close() - stop file watchers

compileTailwind(options?): Promise<TailwindCompileResult>

One-shot compile without watching. Returns { css, candidateCount, fileCount }.

Options

| Option | Default | Description | | -------- | ------------------ | -------------------------------- | | source | "src/styles.css" | CSS file path relative to base | | base | process.cwd() | Project root |

Behavior

• Dev (NODE_ENV !== "production"): watches source directories, recompiles on change, serves with no-cache
• Production (NODE_ENV=production): no watcher, serves with public, max-age=31536000, immutable
• Source directories and file extensions are derived from @tailwindcss/oxide Scanner - no manual config needed

License

MIT