liquefy-ui

A TypeScript UI library that delivers highly transparent Liquid Glass through WebGL optics, physical springs, and accessible React primitives.

This is an independent open-source project and is not affiliated with Apple Inc. It references public design principles while providing an original implementation for the web.

The capture above comes from the live playground: that is a displacement map applied to the real backdrop through backdrop-filter, while the shape stretches and overshoots from springs reading pointer velocity. Both are on by default. Scroll it yourself at liquefy-ui.com, which also hosts the component reference and the shadcn registry.

Packages

Package	Purpose
@liquefy-ui/react	React components, themes, and provider
@liquefy-ui/core	Dependency-free WebGL, springs, and motion
@liquefy-ui/icons	Tree-shakeable React SVG icons
@liquefy-ui/mcp	MCP server that answers component questions from the real API

Quick start

pnpm add @liquefy-ui/react @liquefy-ui/core @liquefy-ui/icons

import { LiquefyProvider, LiquidButton } from '@liquefy-ui/react'
import { SparklesIcon } from '@liquefy-ui/icons'
import '@liquefy-ui/react/styles.css'

export function App() {
  return (
    <LiquefyProvider>
      <LiquidButton iconBefore={<SparklesIcon />}>
        Create magic
      </LiquidButton>
    </LiquefyProvider>
  )
}

Next.js and React Server Components

Every component needs state, refs or the WebGL lens, so the whole package sits on the client side of an RSC boundary. The published bundles carry a 'use client' directive, so importing them straight into a server component works — no wrapper file needed. Only event handlers have to move: a function cannot cross from a server component into a client one, so anything with onClick or local state belongs in its own 'use client' component.

apps/next-example is a working Next.js 16 App Router app whose page is a server component, and its build runs in CI. If the client boundary ever regresses, that build fails rather than yours.

Tailwind CSS v4

Import tailwind.css instead of styles.css, before Tailwind itself:

@import '@liquefy-ui/react/tailwind.css';
@import 'tailwindcss';

That declares the cascade layer order — so className="rounded-full" on a LiquidButton actually wins — and bridges the --lq-* tokens into Tailwind's theme as bg-liquid-accent, text-liquid-muted, rounded-liquid, shadow-liquid, ease-liquid and friends. The bridge uses @theme inline, which is what keeps those utilities resolving per-theme at use time.

For coding agents

What	Where
MCP server	claude mcp add liquefy-ui -- npx -y @liquefy-ui/mcp — eight tools answering from the real exports, no network, no dependencies
llms.txt	/llms.txt and /llms-full.txt, generated from source
One page per component	/llms/liquid-button.md, plus icons.md, core.md and mcp.md — plain Markdown, because the docs site is a hash-routed SPA that a fetcher without JavaScript cannot read
shadcn registry	npx shadcn@latest add @liquefy-ui/liquid-button — the namespace is in shadcn's registry directory, so it needs no components.json entry

The MCP tools are get_conventions, list_components, get_component, search_components, get_component_source, get_tokens, list_icons and get_core_api. The catalog behind them is generated from source at build time, and lists only names the package entry point re-exports — so an agent is never told to import something that does not resolve.

The registry copies real component source into your project rather than a re-export, with imports rewritten to @/components/ui, @/lib and @/hooks. The copied tree keeps @liquefy-ui/core and @base-ui/react from npm but not @liquefy-ui/react, so a copied LiquefyProvider never ends up competing with the packaged one. Every copied file is written with its own 'use client' directive, so an RSC app needs no follow-up edit.

Documentation

Everything is on liquefy-ui.com:

Route	Contents
#/	The playground first, then framework and agent-tooling compatibility, then component samples
#/playground	Every LiquefyProvider prop as a live control, applied to the whole site
#/components	Index of every component, each with live demos and a full prop table
#/docs	Introduction, installation, provider, theming, the styles prop, motion
#/docs/frameworks · #/docs/tailwind · #/docs/ai-tooling	Integration
#/docs/accessibility · #/docs/performance · #/docs/troubleshooting	Practices

Old #/guides/* links redirect to their #/docs/* equivalents.

Style overrides: the styles prop

Every component takes a styles prop for one-off overrides, so reaching for a stylesheet is optional. It is a superset of style:

<LiquidButton
  styles={{
    color: 'accent',            // colour words resolve to var(--lq-accent)
    p: 3,                       // spacing keys count --lq-space units
    w: { base: '100%', md: 240 }, // responsive, per breakpoint
    boxShadow: '$shadow',       // $token → var(--lq-token), anywhere in a string
    _hover: { bg: '$glass-soft' },
    _dark: { opacity: 0.92 },
    '&:has(svg)': { gap: 2 },   // raw selectors start with &, at-rules with @
  }}
>
  Create magic
</LiquidButton>

Feature	Notes
CSS properties	Every camelCase property, plus --custom-properties. Numbers become px, matching style.
Spacing shorthands	p, px, py, pt/pr/pb/pl, and the m equivalents. Numbers count --lq-space units (4px by default, set spacing on the provider). gap and friends use the same scale.
Other shorthands	w, h, size, minW/maxW/minH/maxH, bg, radius. radius drives --lq-radius, so the press-squish keeps animating the corners.
Tokens	$name anywhere in a string resolves to var(--lq-name). Colour properties also accept the bare words accent, tint, foreground, muted, placeholder, text, line.
Responsive	{ base, sm, md, lg, xl }, ordered ascending no matter how you write it. Override the widths with breakpoints on LiquefyProvider.
States	_hover, _focus, _focusVisible, _active, _disabled, _checked, _selected, _expanded, _open, _invalid, _readOnly, _placeholder, _first, _last, _odd, _even, and _dark / _light (which cover both the explicit theme and theme="system").

Static values ride the style attribute, so the common case adds no stylesheet and no hydration concerns. As soon as a state or breakpoint appears, the whole object moves into a generated class instead — otherwise the inline declarations would outrank the very rules meant to override them. That class is inserted unlayered, and the component stylesheet lives in @layer liquefy-ui, so overrides win on cascade order rather than on !important or specificity.

Precedence is styles over the component's own custom properties, and style over everything — style stays the last-resort escape hatch.

transform and backdrop-filter are written inline by the jelly springs every frame and cannot be overridden through styles; development builds warn if you try. Wrap the component and style the wrapper instead.

Building your own component on the same system:

import { useLiquidStyles, type LiquidStyleProps } from '@liquefy-ui/react'

export const Panel = ({ className, style, styles, ...props }: LiquidStyleProps & JSX.IntrinsicElements['div']) => {
  const root = useLiquidStyles('my-panel', { className, style, styles })
  return <div className={root.className} style={root.style} {...props} />
}

Server rendering: useInsertionEffect does not run on the server, so flush the collected rules into the document head yourself with getLiquefyStyleSheet(). Static-only styles need nothing — they are already inline.

LiquefyProvider takes className and style but not styles — it owns the config that styles reads. LiquidToastProvider takes none of the three: it renders no root element of its own, only the toast viewport. slotStyles is reserved for per-part styling ({ header, body, footer }) and is not implemented yet.

The full version of this — every shorthand, token reference, breakpoint and state key, plus custom components and server rendering — is at #/docs/styles-prop, with the token system itself at #/docs/theming.

Components

36 components and 53 icons, each with live demos and a full prop table at liquefy-ui.com/#/components.

Category	Components
Inputs	LiquidButton, LiquidIconButton, LiquidCheckbox, LiquidRadioGroup / LiquidRadio, LiquidSwitch, LiquidSlider, LiquidTextField, LiquidTextArea, LiquidSelect, LiquidDatePicker, LiquidSegmented, LiquidRating
Data display	LiquidAvatar / LiquidAvatarGroup, LiquidBadge, LiquidChip, LiquidTooltip, LiquidTable family, LiquidList family, LiquidDivider
Feedback	LiquidAlert, LiquidProgress, LiquidSpinner, LiquidGauge, LiquidSkeleton, LiquidToastProvider / useLiquidToast, LiquidDialog
Surfaces	LiquidSurface, LiquidGlass, GlassCard, LiquidAccordion / LiquidAccordionItem
Navigation	LiquidTabs family, LiquidBreadcrumbs, LiquidPagination, LiquidMenu, LiquidDrawer, GlassDock / DockItem
Foundation	LiquefyProvider, useLiquefyConfig, useLiquidGlass, useLiquidStyles, getLiquefyStyleSheet, defaultBreakpoints

When WebGL is unavailable, components automatically fall back to the transparent CSS material. Lens, WebGL, motion, transparency and glow are on by default; ripple, shimmer and sparkle are off, so the rim stays a neutral line unless you turn shimmer on for colour. Use the provider props to tune them across a subtree.

Use theme="dark", theme="light", or theme="system" on LiquefyProvider to control appearance.

Design notes

• Real edge refraction: a rounded-rect lens displacement map bends the live backdrop through an SVG feDisplacementMap inside backdrop-filter. Its fold-safe curve keeps the sampled backdrop one-to-one even at control sizes. Chromium renders it fully; WebKit and Gecko gracefully fall back to the blurred CSS material.
• One shared WebGL context: browsers cap live WebGL contexts (~16 per page), so every component draws through a single hidden GL canvas and blits into its own 2D canvas. Any number of glass components can coexist.
• Jelly physics: scale, skew, and tilt run on deliberately underdamped springs. Pointer velocity is injected into the springs, so fast sweeps make surfaces sway, and press/release produces several visible overshoots. The shader receives the same energy as u_wobble and wiggles the rim in sync.
• The overlay shader renders RGB-edged rim light, iridescence, pointer glow, press ripples, and a moving sheen — only during interaction and decay, never continuously.
• Glass is intended for interaction and navigation layers rather than primary content.
• Accessibility comes from Base UI: Dialog, Drawer, Menu, Select, Tooltip, Tabs and Accordion are built on @base-ui/react, which supplies focus trapping and restoration, scroll locking, Escape handling, roving tabindex, typeahead, and collision-aware positioning. liquefy-ui keeps the optics and the springs and stops re-implementing the parts that are easy to get subtly wrong. The keyboard behaviour is asserted in packages/react/test/keyboard.test.tsx rather than assumed.
• React and React DOM are peer dependencies, preventing duplicate React bundles.
• Motion and transparency are always on by default, independent of OS accessibility settings (macOS "Reduce Motion" / "Reduce Transparency" silently flip both media queries in every desktop browser). Toggle them per subtree with motion={false} / transparency={false} on LiquefyProvider; apps that want to honor the OS can pass e.g. motion={!matchMedia('(prefers-reduced-motion: reduce)').matches} or use the core-level respectReducedMotion / respectReducedTransparency options.

Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome. rc is the development branch — branch from it and open the pull request back into it. CONTRIBUTING.md has the local setup, the test suites, the CI jobs and the commit convention.

Sponsor

GitHub Sponsors funds the maintenance of this library — the shader work, the browser matrix, and the release plumbing that keeps pnpm add @liquefy-ui/react boring. Sponsorship goes to the maintainer rather than to an organisation; there is one of us.

GitHub takes no cut, so the whole amount arrives. One-off is as welcome as monthly.

License

MIT