Click UI

Click UI is the ClickHouse design system and component library. Our aim with Click UI is to provide an accessible, theme-able, modern, and attractive interface with which to experience the speed and power of ClickHouse.

You can find the official docs for the Click UI design system and component library at clickhouse.design/click-ui.

Overview

• Requirements
• Quick Start
• Development
  • Generating design tokens
  • Local development
  • Circular dependency check
• Tests
  • Functional tests
  • Visual regression tests
• Storybook
  • Stories development server
  • Public static site
• Distribution
  • Build
  • Use Click UI
  • Component-level imports
  • Public API
  • Examples
• Themes
  • Prevent theme flash
  • Theme Persistence
  • Custom styling with CSS
• Assets Management
  • Convert SVG to React Component
• Changesets
  • Add a new changeset
  • Checking the changeset status
  • Create a new version and changelogs
• Release
• Contributing
  • Component RFC
  • Conventional commits

Requirements

• Nodejs (>= 22.12.x) as runtime
• Yarn (>= 4.5.3) for development, any other package manager in a host project

Quick Start

Install the package via npm or your favourite package manager:

npm i @clickhouse/click-ui@latest

To use Click UI, you must wrap your application in the provider. This ensures styles and themes are applied correctly across all components.

import { ClickUIProvider, Title, Text } from '@clickhouse/click-ui'

function App() {
  return (
    <ClickUIProvider theme="dark">
      <Title type="h1">Hello ClickHouse</Title>
      <Text>Start building today!</Text>
    </ClickUIProvider>
  )
}

For more examples, including theme switching and configuration, see the How to use section, or explore our design system at clickhouse.design/click-ui.

Development

The project uses yarn package manager for development.

After cloning the repository change to the work directory and install the dependencies:

yarn

Circular dependency check

Check for circular dependencies that can cause build and runtime issues:

yarn circular-dependency:check

If circular dependencies are found it'll exit with a report showing the affeced files which require your attention.

Generating design tokens

Tokens are provided by a style directionary sourced from tokens-studio.

It's expected to have theme tokens provided externally, e.g. Figma tokens-studio output is stored in the repository and a PR's opened. The assets are stored in the directory [./tokens/themes].

Once [./tokens/themes] files are updated or provided from exernal source, e.g. Figma, we must regenerate the tokens for consumption in the project.

Run the command to generate tokens in the path ./src/theme/tokens/:

yarn generate:tokens

Once done, you must commit the changes.

Learn more about tokens-studio here.

Local development

We leverage Storybook as our primary development environment and documentation, see Storybook.

You can start the Storybook development server by:

yarn dev

We do NOT maintain a separate development environment; our Storybook stories serve as the source of truth for component implementation.

Important

We operate collaboratively with the Product Design team. While stories reflect the current implementation (live), Figma files remain the source of truth for design research and decision-making. Changes are typically finalized in Figma before being implemented in code to ensure design-sync.

By avoiding local preview files, we ensure that component experimentation happens in isolation; free from application side effects and providing a live look at component interfaces and usage examples at time of writing.

Note

To ensure stability, we utilize Visual Regression and Unit Testing, see tests. When contributing features or tweaks, you're expected to include or update the relevant tests to maintain stability, e.g. remember the components are consumed by a number of applications.

To get started with the development playground, refer to the Storybook section here.

Tests

Functional tests

The package uses vitest and react testing library for tests, e.g. functional tests.

yarn test

Visual regression tests

The project uses Chromatic for visual regression testing of UI components.

It captures screenshots of Storybook and compares them across builds to detect unintended visual changes by:

• Automated visual testing in GitHub CI/CD pipeline, e.g. storybook publish, UI tests
• Leveraging storybook stories
• Provides visual diff reviews and approval workflows
• Helps catch UI bugs

To setup, you must get a team member project token.

Add the token as an environment variable to your environment preference or profile, e.g. ~/.zshrc:

export CHROMATIC_PROJECT_TOKEN=<YOUR-TOKEN-HERE>

Once ready, you can run tests by:

yarn test:chromatic

Note

Chromatic does NOT generate a report in the terminal due to its cloud nature, which only outputs:

• Build status, e.g. uploading or testing
• Link to the cloud runner or dashboard
• Exit code

If you need quicker iteration feedback, or more testing control during local development, read here

Storybook

The component library provides a collection of ready-to-use components. We use Storybook to showcase and document our components.

Stories development server

Start the storybook development server:

yarn storybook

It'll default to the location http://localhost:6006, if port available.

Build static site

To build a static version:

yarn storybook:build

Once built, you can serve the static files by:

yarn storybook:serve

Public Static Site

The latest static version's built and deployed automatically when contributing to main of Click UI.

Once deployed it's available publicly at clickhouse.design/click-ui.

Changeset

Learn to manage the versioning of changelog entries.

The following is a brief description of available commands to allow a person making a contribution make key decisions about their changes.

It'll generate a changeset, which is effectively two key bits of information:

• A version type which follows semver
• Change information placed in a changelog

Make good use of this simple workflow to help us release new package versions more confidently.

Add a new changeset

When contributing, declare an intent or describe the changes you're making or adding to a release by executing the changeset:add command.

The wizard will ask a few questions and generate a changelog entry for you:

yarn changeset:add

The changesets tool keeps track of all declared changes in the .changeset directory.

Once completed, you must commit the changeset!

Checking the changeset status

To check if your branch contains a changeset:

yarn changeset:status

Create a new version and changelogs

To consume all changesets, and update to the most appropriate semver version and write a friendly changelog based on those changesets, the following command is available:

Important

Consuming changesets is done automatically in the CI/CD environment. For this reason, you don't have to execute the command, as a contributor your single concern should be adding changesets to any relevant changes.

yarn changeset:version

Distribution

The package is distributed as ESM.

Build

To build the distribution version of the package run:

yarn build

Note

Optimizations are responsability of consumer or host apps, e.g. they can't remove unused code if already minified it! We ship unminified code so their build tools can: analyse and remove what they don't need or dead code, debug more easily, compress everything together in one go instead of handling conflicting compression algorithms, etc.

Use Click UI

Navigate to your app's work directory and add the package.

Here, we use yarn but you can use your favorite package manager, e.g. pnpm.

yarn add @clickhouse/click-ui

Note

Click UI should be supported by react frameworks. If you run into any issues consuming it in your react app, report it here. Provide all important details, including information on how to replicate the issue!

Once installed, wrap the application with Click UI provider:

import { ClickUIProvider } from '@clickhouse/click-ui'

export default () => {
  return (
    <ClickUIProvider theme='light'>
      <p>Hello world!</p>
    </ClickUIProvider>
  );
}

After, you are able to import your favorite Click UI components.

import { ClickUIProvider, Title } from '@clickhouse/click-ui'

export default () => {
  return (
    <ClickUIProvider theme='light'>
      <Title type='h1'>Click UI Example</Title>
    </ClickUIProvider>
  );
}

To learn more about individual components, visit Click UI components.

Component-level imports

Components can be imported directly by name, providing a succinct import syntax.

import { Button } from '@clickhouse/click-ui/Button';

The exports map is auto-generated from the public API defined in src/index.ts, learn to manage by reading the Public API section.

Warning

Some components depend on the theme provider. These will fail if used outside of ClickUIProvider. In next versions, this will change and consumer apps will have the ability to use them without the provider wrapping.

Public API

The public API is controlled through the main barrel file at src/index.ts. This file serves as the single source of truth for all components, types, and utilities exported by the package.

Note

The generate:exports script uses the TypeScript Compiler API to parse src/index.ts directly and extract only the components that are explicitly exported. This ensures that only public API components get subpath exports in package.json, while internal components remain inaccessible via direct imports.

Maintainers can add or remove components from the public API by updating the exports in this file. Each export should include both the component and its associated types to ensure consumers have full type support.

Here's an example of src/index.ts:

// Adding a new component to the public API
export { Button } from './components/Button';
export type { ButtonProps } from './components/Button';

// Removing a component (simply delete)

After, you must run the generate:exports to update the component-level exports in the package.json file:

yarn generate:exports

Once complete, commit your changes.

Breaking change support

When introducing breaking changes or deprecating types, maintainers can provide retroactive support by creating custom type aliases. This allows consumers to migrate gradually while maintaining backwards compatibility.

// Backwards compatibility: export legacy type name
// that maps to the new type
export type { NewComponentProps as LegacyComponentProps } from './components/NewComponent';

// Or create a custom type for transition periods
export type DeprecatedProps = NewProps & {
  /** @deprecated Use `newProp` instead */
  oldProp?: string;
};

Note

When deprecating types or components, consider adding JSDoc @deprecated annotations to guide consumers towards the updated API. This provides clear migration paths and IDE warnings.

Examples

Here's a quick copy and paste NextJS example with interactive components you can play:

import { ClickUIProvider, Text, ThemeName, Title, Switch } from '@clickhouse/click-ui'
import { useState } from 'react'

function App() {
  const [theme, setTheme] = useState<ThemeName>('dark')

  const toggleTheme = () => {
    theme === 'dark' ? setTheme('light') : setTheme('dark')
  }

  return (
    <ClickUIProvider theme={theme} config={{tooltip:{ delayDuration: 0 }}}>
      <Switch 
        checked={theme === 'dark'} 
        onCheckedChange={() => toggleTheme()} 
        label="Dark mode"
      />

      <Title type='h1'>Click UI Example</Title>
      <Text>Welcome to Click UI. Get started here.</Text>
    </ClickUIProvider>
  )
}

export default App

Themes

Theming allows the end-user to select its preferred colour theme. You are responsible for managing your own theme state. Use your preferred state management solution (React state, Zustand, Redux, Context, etc.) and pass the current theme to the provider.

Note

Currently, styling is done with css-in-js which might cause some flash since it has to compute the theme and apply it. We'll be moving from styled-components and this shall be changed and improved.

Prevent theme flash

To prevent flash of incorrect theme, import the InitCUIThemeScript component and place it in the <head> of your HTML.

The script reads the theme from localStorage and applies it immediately before React hydration to prevent flashing.

import { InitCUIThemeScript } from '@clickhouse/click-ui';

Simple usage (no props needed):

<html>
  <head>
    <InitCUIThemeScript />
  </head>
  <body>
    <ClickUIProvider theme={theme} persistTheme>
      {children}
    </ClickUIProvider>
  </body>
</html>

Note

On initial load, the component InitCUIThemeScript reads localStorage and applies the theme immediately before React hydration. When the theme changes the ClickUIProvider stores the new theme to localStorage (persistTheme must be enabled). Finally, when page loads/refreshes the process reads from the stored theme from localStorage.

The process will check localStorage for a theme, e.g. in the key cui-theme and apply it immediately preventing flashing. Otherwise, if nothing's stored it'll fallback to the default value light.

Important

If you'd like to override the theme fallback when localStorage is empty, you can do it by setting a value for property defaultTheme, e.g. dark.

Theme Persistence

To enable theme persistence across page reloads, enable persistTheme (default: true). The provider will automatically save theme changes to localStorage.

Notice that we manage theme state in the consumer side:

import { ClickUIProvider } from '@clickhouse/click-ui';
import { useState } from 'react';

export const App = () => {
  const [theme, setTheme] = useState<'dark' | 'light'>('dark');

  return (
    <ClickUIProvider 
      theme={theme}
      persistTheme
    >
      <button onClick={() => setTheme(theme === 'dark' ? 'light' : 'dark')}>
        Switch to {theme === 'dark' ? 'Light' : 'Dark'} Mode
      </button>
    </ClickUIProvider>
  );
};

Tip

An example of NextJS with Server Side Rendering (SSR) is available here, where you can see how the root data-cui-theme is handled.

Custom Styling with CSS

The InitCUIThemeScript applies a data-cui-theme attribute to the root <html> element, allowing you to style custom elements with vanilla CSS.

For example, edit your consumer app stylesheet and introduce custom styles as follows:

[data-cui-theme="light"] {
  --my-app-bg: #ffffff;
  --my-app-text: #1a1a1a;
}

[data-cui-theme="dark"] {
  --my-app-bg: #0a0a0a;
  --my-app-text: #f5f5f5;
}

.my-custom-component {
  background: var(--my-app-bg);
  color: var(--my-app-text);
}

Assets management

The Click UI has image asset files, such as Flags, Icons, Logos and Payments.

Files are originally curated in the context of the design system Figma project. Once exported/sourced from the Figma project file these have to be transformed into the Click UI desired format, e.g. an SVG as a React Component.

Convert SVG to React Component

We provide an automated tool to convert SVG files to React components for Flags, Icons, Logos and Payments.

Let's assume that you want to add a new logo. You are a macOS user and have stored the logo SVG file in your home Downloads directory, e.g. /Users/MyUsername/Downloads.

In the root of Click UI repository, you'd run:

yarn convert:logo ~/Downloads/click-ui.svg

Or provide explicit component name:

yarn convert:logo ~/Downloads/click-ui.svg Click_UI

Alternatively, you can replace logo in the command by the remaining assets types, e.g. convert:flag or convert:icon.

For more detailed instructions, see converting SVG to React Components.

Release

Releases are automated via GitHub Actions. A workflow creates a PR with version bumps and changelogs for review. Once merged, the package is published to npm and a GitHub release is created.

Use the Create a new release Pull Request for a quick automated process.

See Package Release for detailed instructions, including use-cases.

Component RFC

To propose a new component, open an RFC using the Component RFC template.

Note

Replace the in the Component RFC template URL by your branch name.

For example, to open a Component RFC for branch name feat/slider, you'd open the URL:

https://github.com/ClickHouse/click-ui/compare/main...feat/slider?template=component_rfc.md

For GitHub CLI users:

gh pr create --template component_rfc.md

Conventional commits

We prefer to commit our work following Conventional Commits conventions. Conventional Commits are a simple way to write commit messages that both people and computers can understand. It help us keep track fo changes in a consistent manner, making it easier to see what was added, changed, or fixed in each commit or update.

The commit messages are formatted as [type]/[scope] The type is a short descriptor indicating the nature of the work (e.g., feat, fix, docs, style, refactor, test, chore). This follows the conventional commit types.

The scope is a more detailed description of the feature or fix. This could be the component or part of the codebase affected by the change.

Here's an example of different conventional commits messages that you must follow:

test: 💍 Adding missing tests
feat: 🎸 A new feature
fix: 🐛 A bug fix
chore: 🤖 Build process or auxiliary tool changes
docs: 📝 Documentation only changes
refactor: 💡 A code change that neither fixes a bug or adds a feature
style: 💄 Markup, white-space, formatting, missing semi-colons...