- How do I install electrik/slate in a Laravel application?
- Install it with composer require electrik/slate, then follow the quickstart at slate.electrik.dev/docs/quickstart. Slate is a presentation-layer package only, so there is no service provider surface, database, queue, or middleware to configure. Your app does need to be on Tailwind CSS v4, because the components are built on v4 utilities and CSS-first configuration.
- Does Slate work with Tailwind CSS v3, or is Tailwind v4 required?
- Slate targets Tailwind CSS v4 and its CSS-first configuration model. An application still on Tailwind v3 would need to upgrade first or run two design systems in parallel, and that parallel path carries a real maintenance cost. There is no documented Tailwind v3 compatibility path for the package.
- Which Laravel versions does electrik/slate support?
- The package targets Laravel 12.x and 13.x, as shown in its requirements and version badge. Check the composer.json constraints on Packagist before adding it to an older application. Because Slate is Blade-only, it does not add runtime Laravel surface area beyond the view layer.
- Are Slate components compatible with Livewire?
- Slate advertises Livewire-aware form components, and anonymous Blade components are generally safe across Livewire morphs. Alpine-driven pieces such as dropdowns and dialogs should still be smoke-tested with wire:navigate and morph updates before you depend on them. Treat Livewire-readiness as something to verify in a spike rather than assume.
- How do I customize Slate theme tokens without forking the package?
- Slate ships package-owned CSS custom properties, so theming means overriding token values in your CSS variable layer instead of editing component markup. Confirm early that your own design tokens can be expressed as overrides, because adopting Slate means accepting its token names. Forking is possible under the MIT license but shifts the upgrade treadmill onto your team.
- Is Slate stable enough for production?
- Version 3.x is currently in active alpha (3.0.0-alpha.4), with the component surface complete while depth, accessibility, and polish are being hardened before stable. That makes you an early production adopter rather than a mainstream one. Pin versions and keep a thin internal wrapper over the components so breaking changes stay cheap to absorb.
- Do I need React, Vue, or a CLI to use Slate in Laravel?
- No. Slate renders anonymous Blade components such as x-slate::button directly in your templates, so there is no React runtime and no copy-paste CLI step. You install the package with Composer and use the components like any other Blade component.
- How does dark mode work in Slate?
- Dark mode is first-class: theme tokens are defined per mode and switched through the CSS variable layer rather than per-component markup. That keeps dark styling consistent across the whole component set. Check the theming documentation for how your token overrides interact with the dark variant.
- What is the difference between Slate and shadcn/ui for Laravel?
- shadcn/ui is React plus a copy-paste component tree, while Slate delivers the same composition model to Laravel as anonymous Blade components shipped in a Composer package. You get shadcn-style UI without React, without a CLI, and without leaving Blade. The trade-off is that component source lives in the vendor directory until you deliberately eject it into your own codebase.
- What is Slate's accessibility and testing story?
- Accessibility posture, including WCAG 2.2 AA targeting and documented keyboard and focus behavior, is not fully evidenced in the package's current maturity signals, so raise it with the maintainer before procurement. For testing, anonymous components are plain Blade views you can render in feature tests and assert against. Add a keyboard and Livewire morph smoke test before shipping any interactive component.