@astrojs/lit

This Astro integration enables server-side rendering and client-side hydration for your Lit custom elements.

There are two ways to add integrations to your project. Let’s try the most convenient option first!

Astro includes a CLI tool for adding first party integrations: astro add. This command will:

1. (Optionally) Install all necessary dependencies and peer dependencies
2. (Also optionally) Update your astro.config.* file to apply this integration

To install @astrojs/lit, run the following from your project directory and follow the prompts:

# Using NPM
npx astro add lit
# Using Yarn
yarn astro add lit
# Using PNPM
pnpm astro add lit

If you run into any issues, feel free to report them to us on GitHub and try the manual installation steps below.

First, install the @astrojs/lit integration like so:

npm install @astrojs/lit

Most package managers will install associated peer dependencies as well. Still, if you see a “Cannot find package ‘lit’” (or similar) warning when you start up Astro, you’ll need to install lit and @webcomponents/template-shadowroot:

npm install lit @webcomponents/template-shadowroot

Now, apply this integration to your astro.config.* file using the integrations property:

import lit from '@astrojs/lit';

export default {
  // ...
  integrations: [lit()],
}

To use your first Lit component in Astro, head to our UI framework documentation. This explains:

• 📦 how framework components are loaded,
• 💧 client-side hydration options, and
• 🤝 opportunities to mix and nest frameworks together

However, there’s a key difference with Lit custom elements over conventional components: you can use the element tag name directly.

Astro needs to know which tag is associated with which component script. We expose this through exporting a tagName variable from the component script. It looks like this:

import { LitElement, html } from 'lit';

const tagName = 'my-element';

export class MyElement extends LitElement {
  render() {
    return html` <p>Hello world! From my-element</p> `;
  }
}

customElements.define(tagName, MyElement);

Note that exporting the tagName is required if you want to use the tag name in your templates. Otherwise you can export and use the constructor, like with non custom element frameworks.

In your Astro template import this component as a side-effect and use the element.

---
import {MyElement} from '../components/my-element.js';
---

<MyElement />

Note that Lit requires browser globals such as HTMLElement and customElements to be present. For this reason the Lit renderer shims the server with these globals so Lit can run. You might run into libraries that work incorrectly because of this.

The renderer automatically handles adding appropriate polyfills for support in browsers that don’t have Declarative Shadow DOM. The polyfill is about 1.5kB. If the browser does support Declarative Shadow DOM then less than 250 bytes are loaded (to feature detect support).

Hydration is also handled automatically. You can use the same hydration directives such as client:load, client:idle and client:visible as you can with other libraries that Astro supports.

---
import {MyElement} from '../components/my-element.js';
---

<MyElement client:visible />

The above will only load the element’s JavaScript when the user has scrolled it into view. Since it is server rendered they will not see any jank; it will load and hydrate transparently.

For help, check out the #support channel on Discord. Our friendly Support Squad members are here to help!

You can also check our Astro Integration Documentation for more on integrations.

Common issues are listed below:

The Lit integration’s SSR works by adding a few browser global properties to the global environment. Some of the properties it adds includes window, document, and location.

These globals can interfere with other libraries that might use the existence of these variables to detect that they are running in the browser, when they are actually running in the server. This can cause bugs with these libraries.

Because of this, the Lit integration might not be compatible with these types of libraries. One thing that can help is changing the order of integrations when Lit is interfering with other integrations:

import { defineConfig } from 'astro/config';
import vue from '@astrojs/vue';
import lit from '@astrojs/lit';

export default defineConfig({
-  integrations: [vue(), lit()]
+  integrations: [lit(), vue()]
});

The correct order might be different depending on the underlying cause of the problem. This is not guaranteed to fix every issue however, and some libraries cannot be used if you are using the Lit integration because of this.

The Lit integration is powered by @lit-labs/ssr which has some limitations. See their limitations documentation to learn more.

This package is maintained by Astro’s Core team. You’re welcome to submit an issue or PR!

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