supabase/apps/design-system

Supabase Design System

Design resources for building consistent user experiences at Supabase.

Getting started

From the repo root:

# Copy local env vars (sets NEXT_PUBLIC_BASE_PATH for asset URLs)
cp apps/design-system/.env.local.example apps/design-system/.env.local
# Move into the design-system app
cd apps/design-system
# Install dependencies
pnpm i
# Build the registry and Velite content, then start the dev servers
pnpm dev

Or from apps/design-system:

# Copy local env vars (sets NEXT_PUBLIC_BASE_PATH for asset URLs)
cp .env.local.example .env.local
# Install dependencies
pnpm i
# Build the registry and Velite content, then start the dev servers
pnpm dev

The dev command builds the registry and Velite content, then runs the Next.js dev server and Velite watcher in parallel.

Open http://localhost:3003/design-system in your browser to see the result.

Doc pages load compiled MDX from .velite/codes/*.json per document. Metadata lives in the smaller allDocs.json index (~367KB instead of ~27MB), so content edits only reload the changed doc's code.

Alternative commands

You can also run the development server and content watcher separately. Build the registry and content first, because dev:next and dev:content do not:

pnpm build:registry
pnpm build:content

# Run only the Next.js development server
pnpm dev:next

# Run only the Velite content watcher (in a separate terminal shell)
pnpm dev:content

From the repo root, pnpm dev:design-system runs the same dev script. If you split the watchers from the root, build first:

pnpm --filter=design-system build:registry
pnpm --filter=design-system build:content
pnpm --filter=design-system dev:next
pnpm --filter=design-system dev:content

Watching for MDX changes

The dev command watches MDX files and hot-reloads them. If you are running pnpm dev:next on its own, also run pnpm dev:content in another terminal.

Adding components

The design system references components rather than housing them. That distinction matters: everything below is about documenting components, not implementing them. Add or edit the components themselves in one of these two places:

• packages/ui: basic UI components
• packages/ui-patterns: components built from libraries or from packages/ui

After you add or remove documented components, update these source files:

• config/docs.ts: list of components in the sidebar
• content/docs: the component documentation
• registry/examples.ts: example components
• registry/fragments.ts: fragment components
• registry/charts.ts: chart components
• registry/copy-writing.ts: copywriting examples
• registry/default/example/*: the example component implementations
• registry/default/block/*: chart block implementations, when you add a chart

Do not edit __registry__. pnpm dev, pnpm typecheck, and pnpm build generate it from the files above, and it is gitignored. If you add registry entries while the app is already running, regenerate it:

cd apps/design-system
pnpm build:registry