Vite Plugin for WordPress

Here lives a Vite plugin for WordPress development.

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Features

• 🔄 Transforms @wordpress/* imports into global wp.* references
• 📦 Generates dependency manifest for WordPress enqueuing
• 🎨 Generates theme.json from Tailwind CSS configuration (colors, fonts, font sizes, border radius)
• 🔥 Hot Module Replacement (HMR) support for the WordPress editor

Installation

npm install @roots/vite-plugin --save-dev

Usage

Start by adding the base plugin to your Vite config:

// vite.config.js
import { defineConfig } from "vite";
import { wordpressPlugin } from "@roots/vite-plugin";

export default defineConfig({
  plugins: [wordpressPlugin()],
});

Once you've added the plugin, WordPress dependencies referenced in your code will be transformed into global wp.* references.

When WordPress dependencies are transformed, a manifest containing the required dependencies will be generated called editor.deps.json.

External Mappings for Third-Party Plugins

The plugin can also handle third-party WordPress plugins that expose global JavaScript APIs, such as Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) or WooCommerce. This allows you to import these dependencies in your code while ensuring they're treated as external dependencies and properly enqueued by WordPress.

// vite.config.js
import { defineConfig } from "vite";
import { wordpressPlugin } from "@roots/vite-plugin";

export default defineConfig({
  plugins: [
    wordpressPlugin({
      externalMappings: {
        "acf-input": {
          global: ["acf", "input"],
          handle: "acf-input",
        },
        "woocommerce-blocks": {
          global: ["wc", "blocks"],
          handle: "wc-blocks",
        },
      },
    }),
  ],
});

With this configuration, you can import from these packages in your code:

import { Field, FieldGroup } from "acf-input";
import { registerBlockType } from "woocommerce-blocks";

The plugin will transform these imports into global references:

const Field = acf.input.Field;
const FieldGroup = acf.input.FieldGroup;
const registerBlockType = wc.blocks.registerBlockType;

The handle value is added to the dependency manifest (editor.deps.json) so WordPress knows to enqueue these scripts before your code runs.

Editor HMR Support

The plugin automatically enables CSS Hot Module Replacement (HMR) for the WordPress editor.

[!NOTE] JavaScript HMR is not supported at this time. JS changes will trigger a full page reload.

You can customize the HMR behavior in your Vite config:

// vite.config.js
import { defineConfig } from "vite";
import { wordpressPlugin } from "@roots/vite-plugin";

export default defineConfig({
  plugins: [
    wordpressPlugin({
      hmr: {
        // Enable/disable HMR (default: true)
        enabled: true,

        // Pattern to match editor entry points (default: /editor/)
        editorPattern: /editor/,

        // Name of the editor iframe element (default: 'editor-canvas')
        iframeName: "editor-canvas",
      },
    }),
  ],
});

Theme.json Generation

When using this plugin for theme development, you have the option of generating a theme.json file from your Tailwind CSS configuration.

To enable this feature, add the wordpressThemeJson plugin to your Vite config:

// vite.config.js
import { defineConfig } from "vite";
import { wordpressThemeJson } from "@roots/vite-plugin";

export default defineConfig({
  plugins: [
    wordpressThemeJson({
      // Optional: Configure shade labels
      shadeLabels: {
        100: "Lightest",
        900: "Darkest",
      },

      // Optional: Configure font family labels
      fontLabels: {
        sans: "Sans Serif",
        mono: "Monospace",
        inter: "Inter Font",
      },

      // Optional: Configure font size labels
      fontSizeLabels: {
        sm: "Small",
        base: "Default",
        lg: "Large",
      },

      // Optional: Configure border radius labels
      borderRadiusLabels: {
        sm: "Small",
        md: "Medium",
        lg: "Large",
        full: "Full",
      },

      // Optional: Disable specific transformations
      disableTailwindColors: false,
      disableTailwindFonts: false,
      disableTailwindFontSizes: false,
      disableTailwindBorderRadius: false,

      // Optional: Configure paths
      baseThemeJsonPath: "./theme.json",
      outputPath: "assets/theme.json",
      cssFile: "app.css",

      // Optional: Directory to scan for .theme.js partials (default: 'resources')
      partials: "resources",

      // Optional: Legacy Tailwind v3 config path
      tailwindConfig: "./tailwind.config.js",
    }),
  ],
});

Partials

The plugin automatically discovers *.theme.js files in the resources/ directory and deep merges them into the generated theme.json. This lets you split your theme styles across multiple files — for example, co-locating block styles with their block templates.

Partials support two export formats:

Shorthand — blocks and elements at the top level are merged into styles:

// resources/views/blocks/_global.theme.js
export default {
  blocks: {
    "core/paragraph": {
      spacing: { margin: { bottom: "1rem" } },
    },
  },
  elements: {
    h1: {
      typography: {
        fontSize: "var(--wp--preset--font-size--4-xl)",
        fontWeight: "600",
      },
    },
  },
};

Full — merged at the root level, allowing you to target any part of theme.json:

// resources/views/blocks/button.theme.js
export default {
  styles: {
    blocks: {
      "core/button": {
        border: { radius: "0" },
        color: {
          background: "var(--wp--preset--color--black)",
          text: "var(--wp--preset--color--white)",
        },
      },
    },
  },
};

Files are merged in alphabetical order by path. During development, changes to .theme.js files will trigger a rebuild.

You can customize the directory to scan, pass multiple directories, or disable partials entirely:

wordpressThemeJson({
  // Custom directory
  partials: "src/blocks",

  // Multiple directories
  partials: ["resources/views/blocks", "resources/styles"],

  // Disable
  partials: false,
});

Tailwind CSS Variables

By default, Tailwind v4 will only generate CSS variables that are discovered in your source files.

To generate the full default Tailwind color palette into your theme.json, you can use the static theme option when importing Tailwind:

@import "tailwindcss" theme(static);

The same applies for customized colors in the @theme directive. To ensure your colors get generated, you can use another form of the static theme option:

@theme static {
  --color-white: #fff;
  --color-purple: #3f3cbb;
  --color-midnight: #121063;
  --color-tahiti: #3ab7bf;
  --color-bermuda: #78dcca;
}

Community

Keep track of development and community news.

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