vue-border-beam

Animated border beam effect for Vue. This is a Vue 3 port of border-beam, with the same visual presets and a Vue-friendly event API.

Add a traveling or breathing glow animation around any element: cards, buttons, inputs, search bars, chat boxes, or loading panels.

Requirements

• Vue 3.3+
• Modern browser with CSS @property support for the smoothest rotate animations

Install

npm install @stevebauman/vue-border-beam

Quick start

<script setup lang="ts">
import { BorderBeam } from '@stevebauman/vue-border-beam';
</script>

<template>
  <BorderBeam>
    <div style="padding: 32px; border-radius: 16px; background: #1d1d1d;">
      Your content here
    </div>
  </BorderBeam>
</template>

BorderBeam wraps your content and overlays the animated effect. When border-radius is not provided, it auto-detects the radius of the first child element.

Presets

Built-in presets control the glow style and motion. They fall into two families.

Rotate

Use rotate presets for traveling beam effects.

<template>
  <!-- Full border glow (default) -->
  <BorderBeam size="md">
    <Card />
  </BorderBeam>

  <!-- Compact glow for small controls -->
  <BorderBeam size="sm">
    <button class="icon-button">
      <IconPlus />
    </button>
  </BorderBeam>

  <!-- Bottom-only traveling glow -->
  <BorderBeam size="line">
    <label class="search-bar">
      <SearchIcon />
      <input placeholder="Search" />
    </label>
  </BorderBeam>
</template>

Pulse

Use pulse presets for breathing glow effects with no rotation.

<template>
  <!-- Contained breathing border glow -->
  <BorderBeam size="pulse-inner">
    <div class="status-card">
      Working...
    </div>
  </BorderBeam>

  <!-- Outward-blooming halo around the element -->
  <BorderBeam size="pulse-outside">
    <div class="chat-box">
      Build anything...
    </div>
  </BorderBeam>
</template>

Both pulse types support all color variants, strength, theme, and breathe speed via duration.

pulse-outside requires an opaque wrapped child. The colorful core and halo render behind your content and bloom outward, so transparent children will show the inner glow through the element.

pulse-outside relies on the wrapped element's own 1px border as the idle hairline. If your child has no border, add a subtle 1px border or inset shadow so the edge stays defined while the beam is faded out.

Component Examples

Card

<template>
  <BorderBeam size="md" color-variant="colorful" theme="dark">
    <article class="card">
      <p class="eyebrow">Deploying</p>
      <h2>Production release</h2>
      <p>Running migrations, warming caches, and publishing assets.</p>
    </article>
  </BorderBeam>
</template>

Icon Button

<template>
  <BorderBeam size="sm" color-variant="sunset" :border-radius="999">
    <button class="icon-button" aria-label="Create">
      <PlusIcon />
    </button>
  </BorderBeam>
</template>

Search Bar

<template>
  <BorderBeam size="line" color-variant="ocean" :duration="3.1" :border-radius="24">
    <label class="search-bar">
      <SearchIcon />
      <input type="search" placeholder="Search projects" />
    </label>
  </BorderBeam>
</template>

Loading Panel

<template>
  <BorderBeam size="pulse-inner" color-variant="colorful" :strength="0.85">
    <section class="task-panel">
      <header>Working...</header>
      <ul>
        <li>Generate color palettes</li>
        <li>Recommend font pairings</li>
        <li>Create layout templates</li>
      </ul>
    </section>
  </BorderBeam>
</template>

Chat Input

<template>
  <BorderBeam size="pulse-outside" color-variant="mono" theme="dark">
    <form class="chat-input">
      <textarea placeholder="Build anything..." />
      <button type="submit">Send</button>
    </form>
  </BorderBeam>
</template>

Color variants

Four color palettes are available:

<template>
  <BorderBeam color-variant="colorful">
    <Card />
  </BorderBeam>

  <BorderBeam color-variant="mono">
    <Card />
  </BorderBeam>

  <BorderBeam color-variant="ocean">
    <Card />
  </BorderBeam>

  <BorderBeam color-variant="sunset">
    <Card />
  </BorderBeam>
</template>

All variants except mono animate through a hue-shift cycle.

Theme

Adapt beam colors for dark or light backgrounds:

<template>
  <BorderBeam theme="dark">
    <DarkCard />
  </BorderBeam>

  <BorderBeam theme="light">
    <LightCard />
  </BorderBeam>

  <BorderBeam theme="auto">
    <Card />
  </BorderBeam>
</template>

Strength

Control the overall intensity without affecting the wrapped content:

<template>
  <BorderBeam :strength="0.7">
    <Card />
  </BorderBeam>
</template>

strength accepts a value from 0 to 1.

CSS customization hooks

You can tune advanced glow behavior with CSS custom properties on the BorderBeam wrapper or a class passed to it:

<template>
  <BorderBeam class="custom-beam" size="pulse-outside">
    <Card />
  </BorderBeam>
</template>

<style>
.custom-beam {
  --pulse-glow-boost: 1.2;
  --beam-core-blur: 16px;
  --beam-bloom-blur: 34px;
  --beam-glow-brightness: 1.8;
  --beam-glow-saturate: 1.1;
  --beam-inner-opacity: 0.85;
  --beam-hue-base: 12deg;
}
</style>

--pulse-glow-boost scales the pulse-outside halo after it has been measured against the wrapped element. The --beam-core-blur, --beam-bloom-blur, --beam-glow-brightness, --beam-glow-saturate, --beam-inner-opacity, and --beam-hue-base hooks let you fine-tune the generated glow without replacing the component CSS.

Play / pause

Toggle the animation with smooth fade transitions:

<script setup lang="ts">
import { ref } from 'vue';
import { BorderBeam } from '@stevebauman/vue-border-beam';

const active = ref(true);
</script>

<template>
  <BorderBeam
    :active="active"
    @deactivate="console.log('faded out')"
  >
    <Card />
  </BorderBeam>

  <button type="button" @click="active = !active">
    {{ active ? 'Pause' : 'Play' }}
  </button>
</template>

Props

| Prop | Type | Default | Description | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | default slot | VNodeChild | — | Content to wrap | | size | 'sm' \| 'md' \| 'line' \| 'pulse-outside' \| 'pulse-inner' | 'md' | Beam preset | | colorVariant | 'colorful' \| 'mono' \| 'ocean' \| 'sunset' | 'colorful' | Beam palette | | theme | 'dark' \| 'light' \| 'auto' | 'dark' | Background adaptation | | strength | number | 1 | Effect opacity from 0 to 1 | | duration | number | preset-based | Animation cycle duration in seconds | | active | boolean | true | Whether the beam is active | | borderRadius | number | auto-detected | Border radius in pixels | | brightness | number | preset-based | Glow brightness multiplier | | saturation | number | preset-based | Glow saturation multiplier | | hueRange | number | 30 | Hue rotation range in degrees | | staticColors | boolean | false | Disable hue-shift animation |

All standard HTMLDivElement attributes are forwarded to the wrapper, including class, style, id, and aria-*.

Events

| Event | Description | | --- | --- | | activate | Emitted after the fade-in animation completes | | deactivate | Emitted after the fade-out animation completes | | animationEnd | Re-emits the native animation end event |

How it works

BorderBeam renders a wrapper <div> with:

• ::after: the beam stroke
• ::before: the inner glow layer
• [data-beam-bloom]: the outer bloom/glow layer

The effect layers are decorative and use pointer-events: none, so they do not interfere with input, hover, focus, or screen readers.

Rotate and line presets animate with generated CSS keyframes. Pulse presets use a shared, frame-rate-capped requestAnimationFrame driver for breathing motion and automatically pause when inactive, offscreen, or when the user prefers reduced motion.