Installation
If your project was set up with shadcn-templ init, you already have scroll-fade. It ships in the vendored shadcn-tailwind.css, which the CLI imports in your Tailwind entry file.
Otherwise, vendor the stylesheet next to your Tailwind entry file:
Then import the shared utilities in your Tailwind entry file:
Usage
Add scroll-fade or scroll-fade-y to the scroll container, i.e. the element that has overflow-y-auto.
The fade is scroll-aware and tracks the scroll position:
- At rest, the top edge is crisp and the bottom edge fades to hint at more content.
- As you scroll, a fade appears at the top and both edges stay faded mid-scroll.
- At the end, the bottom edge sharpens to show you have reached the last item.
The fade is applied with mask-image, so it dissolves the content itself rather than overlaying a color. The mask uses a linear fade from transparent to black, so it adapts to any background without configuration. If your scroll area sits inside a card, put the background and border on a wrapper and scroll-fade on the inner scroller, so the fade dissolves the content and not the card.
No Overflow, No Fade
If the content does not overflow, no fade is shown. You can apply scroll-fade to any list without checking whether it scrolls.
Horizontal Scrolling
Use scroll-fade-x on containers that scroll horizontally, i.e. the element that has overflow-x-auto.
The horizontal fade is direction-aware. In RTL layouts, the crisp edge and the fade follow the reading direction with no extra classes needed. scroll-fade-<number> and scroll-fade-none work the same for both axes.
Edge Fades
Use edge utilities when only one edge should track the scroll position.
The edge utilities are scroll-aware. Start edges fade in after you scroll away from the start, and end edges fade out when you reach the end. Use scroll-fade-t, scroll-fade-b, scroll-fade-l, and scroll-fade-r for physical edges. Use scroll-fade-s and scroll-fade-e for logical inline edges that mirror in RTL.
Fade Size
The fade depth defaults to 12% of the container, capped at 40px so tall scrollers stay subtle. Use scroll-fade-<number> to set a fixed size on the spacing scale instead, the same way scroll-mt-<number> works.
For one-off values, use an arbitrary length or percentage:
To fade opposite edges by different amounts, use the per-edge modifiers scroll-fade-t-<number>, scroll-fade-b-<number>, scroll-fade-s-<number>, and scroll-fade-e-<number>. They override scroll-fade-<number> on the edge they target and accept arbitrary values too.
Use the logical s/e modifiers for horizontal scrollers so the sizes mirror in RTL.
The fade eases in and out over a fixed scroll distance rather than appearing instantly. That distance is the --scroll-fade-reveal variable, 96px by default and independent of the fade depth. Lower it for a snappier reveal or raise it for a more gradual one:
Disabling the Fade
Use scroll-fade-none to remove the fade. It works in any class order, so the typical use is responsive or stateful:
Fallback
The scroll-aware behavior is implemented with CSS scroll-driven animations, with no JavaScript and no scroll listeners. In browsers that do not support scroll-driven animations, scroll-fade falls back to a static fade on both edges, and edge utilities fall back to a static fade on the selected edge.
Since the mask is applied to the scroll container itself, a visible scrollbar fades with the content at the edges. Pair scroll-fade with no-scrollbar, which ships in the same stylesheet, if you want to hide the scrollbar entirely.
RTL
To install RTL-compiled components, see the rtl setting in your components.json.
scroll-fade-x follows the reading direction. At rest, the start edge is crisp and the end edge fades. In RTL layouts that means a crisp right edge and a fade on the left, mirrored from LTR.