Monochrome

The framework-agnostic UI library for agents. Accessible, HTML-first components with no hydration.

If you write accessible HTML, monochrome makes it interactive. The DOM is the state; ARIA attributes (aria-expanded, aria-selected, aria-checked) drive every component. No initialization, no mount hooks, no runtime dependencies.

Accordion · Collapsible · Dialog · Menu · Menubar · Popover · Tabs · Tooltip. Plus an optional client-side router, and React and Vue components that npx monochrome add writes into your project.

Start with your agent

npx monochrome init

That installs the package and adds a short block to AGENTS.md, which Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, and Copilot read. From then on, "add a dropdown to the header" is npx monochrome add menu in React or Vue: the parts, written into your project, and the spec that says how to style them in your project's own styles. Or tell your agent:

Read https://monochrome-ui.com/SKILL.md and use monochrome for the UI.

The skill also installs with npx skills add vaneenige/monochrome-ui.

Why agents get it right

• Nothing to hallucinate. A component is HTML plus ARIA. There is no state API, no init call to forget; the React and Vue parts take only initial values.
• Verifiable. The spec ends in a checklist for rendered HTML, and each component lists its contract and common mistakes, so an agent can verify any renderer's output against it.
• Opinions written down. Each component lists its design choices with the reason, such as tabs that select on Enter, so an agent keeps them instead of "fixing" them.
• Docs that match your version. The contract ships in the package at node_modules/monochrome/spec/, one markdown file per component, for agents to read.
• Works with streamed and generated HTML. Listeners live on window, so markup is live the moment it lands in the document: innerHTML, a framework render, or tokens streaming in.
• ARIA is the state. Browser agents read aria-expanded and aria-selected to know what is open, and operate components with ordinary clicks and keys.

CLI

Command	What it does
npx monochrome init	Set a project up: install monochrome, save the settings add uses, and add a short block to AGENTS.md. Works without a package.json too
npx monochrome add menu tabs	Print the markup to start from; in React and Vue, write the parts into your project, once. Says what to style and where the spec shows how (--framework html|react|vue, --components <dir>, --dry-run, --json)
npx monochrome docs menu	Print a component's spec: markup, parts, keyboard, how to style it, design choices, common mistakes. No topic lists them all
npx monochrome changelog	Print what changed since the version the project has, with the steps to upgrade (--from <version>, --to <version>)

The CLI runs on Node 20 or later and has no dependencies. It always installs monochrome at its own version, so the files it writes match the core they import. Every release is in CHANGELOG.md, with its upgrade steps first.

Install

npm install monochrome

// every component, one flat file. For pages that ship no other
// monochrome import; don't combine with the granular imports below
import "monochrome"

// one component (shared helpers dedupe across entries)
import "monochrome/menu"

// optional router
import "monochrome/router"

monochrome ships no CSS: you style each component with your project's own styles, so it looks like the rest of the project from the start. Each component's spec has a Styling section with the states to style and an example. Menus, popovers, and tooltips also need its Required CSS, which places them at their trigger (spec/styling.md).

React and Vue: npx monochrome add menu writes the parts into your project, under src/components/ui/ (components/ui/ without a src/ folder). In React that is menu.tsx (.jsx without a tsconfig); in Vue, a menu/ folder of single-file components with an index.ts. Each component imports its own core module and its parts take a class; the files are yours to edit. The parts need React 19 or Vue 3.5. Both import the same way:

import { Menu } from "@/components/ui/menu"

There is no monochrome/react or monochrome/vue export: 0.18 removed them. The parts live in your project, and npx monochrome add writes them. Upgrading: npx monochrome changelog --from <old version>.

Example

<script type="module" src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/monochrome/dist/index.js"></script>

<button type="button" id="mct:collapsible:1" aria-expanded="false" aria-controls="mcc:collapsible:1">
  Show details
</button>
<div id="mcc:collapsible:1" hidden>
  Hidden by default, revealed on click.
</div>

The React and Vue components generate the same HTML and ARIA; all interactivity comes from the core. The full contract for every component, with its parts, keyboard tables, and how to style it, is in spec/ and at monochrome-ui.com.

Browser support

Core: Baseline 2024. Chrome 114 (2023-05-30), Safari 17 (2023-09-18), and Firefox 125 (2024-04-16). Uses the Popover API and the native <dialog> element. No polyfills shipped.

Router: Navigation API (Baseline 2026). Chrome 135 (2025-04-01), Safari 26.2 (2025-12-12), and Firefox 147 (2026-01-13). Links are prefetched on hover, focus, and press, and, from the reader's first interaction, as they enter the viewport; see docs/router.md. Older browsers keep full page loads; import "monochrome/router" is a no-op there.

Contributing

Library development uses Bun 1.4.2. Open a pull request against main; do not push to it.

bun install

That installs dependencies and points Git at the repo hooks. A commit runs lint, build, and typecheck. No browsers.

To run tests locally:

bun run test:install
bun run test

Linux may need bunx playwright install --with-deps chromium (sudo) if Chromium will not launch. The full matrix is bun run test:install:all then bun run test:all. CI runs that matrix on the pull request. PRINCIPLES.md holds the non-negotiables, AGENTS.md how to work in the repo, and docs/ how each mechanism works. Router notes live in docs/router.md.

License

MIT © Colin van Eenige