Web UI Headless UI

Headless UI Patterns

Quick Guide: Headless UI ships behaviour with no appearance: ARIA, keyboard navigation and focus management are automatic, and every visual decision is yours through className. v2 uses flat compound components (Menu + MenuButton + MenuItems + MenuItem), publishes state as data-* attributes rather than render props, positions floating panels through the anchor prop, and animates through the transition prop with data-closed / data-enter / data-leave. v2 is React only — the Vue package remains at v1.

Detailed Resources:

• examples/core.md — data-attribute styling, anchor positioning, transitions, the as prop, useClose
• examples/dialog.md — modal overlays, form dialogs, coordinated slide-over panels
• examples/menu.md — dropdown action menus, sections, headings, separators
• examples/listbox-combobox.md — custom select, multi-select, autocomplete, virtual scrolling
• examples/tabs.md — horizontal and vertical tabs, controlled state, badges
• examples/popover-disclosure.md — floating panels, accordions, standalone transitions
• examples/switch-radio.md — toggle, option cards, checkbox
• examples/forms.md — Field, Input, Label, Fieldset, cascading disabled state
• reference.md — component inventory, data-attribute and anchor tables, keyboard shortcuts, v1 → v2 migration

Before writing Headless UI code

Assemble each component from its v2 parts — Menu + MenuButton + MenuItems + MenuItem. The parts carry the ARIA wiring and the keyboard handling; a div with a click handler carries neither.

Style state from the data-* attributes — data-open, data-focus, data-selected, data-hover, data-active. They are plain DOM attributes, so the styling stays in CSS, costs no re-render, and works in a server component.

Position floating panels with the anchor prop on MenuItems, ListboxOptions, ComboboxOptions and PopoverPanel. It flips and shifts against the viewport, and it exposes --anchor-gap, --button-width and --input-width for the fine-tuning that hand-rolled positioning would need code for.

Animate with the transition prop plus data-closed / data-enter / data-leave. One class list covers enter and leave, and the element stays mounted until the transition finishes.

Auto-detection: Headless UI, headlessui, @headlessui/react, DialogPanel, DialogBackdrop, MenuButton, MenuItems, MenuSection, ListboxButton, ListboxOptions, ComboboxInput, ComboboxOptions, PopoverPanel, PopoverGroup, TabGroup, TabList, TabPanels, DisclosureButton, DisclosurePanel, Switch, RadioGroup, Fieldset, Legend, CloseButton, useClose, data-closed, data-enter, data-leave, anchor positioning, --anchor-gap, --button-width

Applies to:

• Accessible overlays — dialogs, popovers, dropdown menus — where you own every pixel
• Custom select, multi-select and autocomplete controls with keyboard navigation and type-ahead
• Tabs, accordions, switches, radio groups and checkboxes built from scratch
• Form fields that need id, aria-labelledby and aria-describedby wired without doing it by hand

Handled elsewhere:

• Appearance — every part takes a className and the library ships no CSS, so which CSS approach produces those class names is not this skill's concern
• Pre-styled components — this library has no visual opinions at all, and a project that wants them out of the box wants a styled component kit instead
• Design tokens and colour scales — the attributes below are the contract; what the values are is settled by whatever owns your visual language
• Non-React usage — v2 is React-only

Headless UI supplies behaviour and supplies no appearance. Three things follow.

Each pattern is several elements, not one. A dropdown is Menu (state and context), MenuButton, MenuItems (the floating panel) and MenuItem. Each part is separately styleable, and the parts coordinate through context rather than through props you thread.

State is published to the DOM. Components write their state onto their own elements as data-* attributes. Reading state from an attribute selector is cheaper and more correct than a render prop that re-renders the subtree to swap a class.

Positioning and transitions are built in. Floating panels use Floating UI internally through the anchor prop, and the transition prop drives CSS transitions off data-closed, so neither needs a second library.

Which component

A native element that already does the job — <select>, <input type="checkbox">, <details> — needs none of this. Reach for a component below when you must style what native will not let you style, or extend what it does not do.

Modal that blocks the page          → Dialog (Escape, outside click, focus trapped)
Dropdown of actions                 → Menu (arrow keys, type-ahead, closes on select)
Custom select, single or multiple   → Listbox
Searchable select                   → Combobox (virtual={{ options }} past ~1000 items)
Floating non-modal content          → Popover (closes on outside click and tab-away)
Tabbed content                      → TabGroup
Show/hide toggle                    → Disclosure
Boolean toggle                      → Switch
One of a small visible set          → RadioGroup
Checked / unchecked / indeterminate → Checkbox
A field needing ARIA wiring         → Field + Label + Description + Input/Select/Textarea

Which transition

Fade or scale                       → transition prop + data-closed classes
Different enter and leave motion    → stack data-closed:data-enter: and data-closed:data-leave:
Backdrop and panel together         → Transition + TransitionChild
An external animation library       → static prop, and render conditionally yourself

Core patterns

Pattern 1: Dialog

Always controlled: you own open and pass onClose. Focus is trapped in the panel, and the dialog portals itself.

<Dialog
  open={isOpen}
  => setIsOpen(false)}
  className="relative z-50"
>
  <DialogBackdrop
    transition
    className="fixed inset-0 bg-black/30 duration-300 data-[closed]:opacity-0"
  />
  <div className="fixed inset-0 flex items-center justify-center p-4">
    <DialogPanel
      transition
      className="max-w-lg rounded-xl bg-white p-12 duration-300 data-[closed]:opacity-0"
    >
      <DialogTitle>Title</DialogTitle>
      <Description>Description text</Description>
    </DialogPanel>
  </div>
</Dialog>

DialogTitle sets aria-labelledby and Description sets aria-describedby.

Full code: examples/dialog.md

Pattern 2: Menu

A dropdown of actions: arrow keys, type-ahead search, and close-on-select.

<Menu>
  <MenuButton>Options</MenuButton>
  <MenuItems
    anchor="bottom start"
    transition
    className="w-52 [--anchor-gap:8px] data-[closed]:opacity-0"
  >
    <MenuItem>
      <button className="block w-full px-3 py-1.5 text-left data-[focus]:bg-gray-100">
        Edit
      </button>
    </MenuItem>
  </MenuItems>
</Menu>

data-focus covers keyboard and pointer focus together. MenuSection, MenuHeading and MenuSeparator group items with the matching ARIA semantics.

Full code: examples/menu.md

Pattern 3: Listbox

A <select> replacement you style completely.

<Listbox value={selected}
  <ListboxButton>{selected.name}</ListboxButton>
  <ListboxOptions
    anchor="bottom"
    className="w-[var(--button-width)] [--anchor-gap:4px]"
  >
    <ListboxOption
      value={item}
      className="data-[focus]:bg-blue-100 data-[selected]:font-semibold"
    >
      {item.name}
    </ListboxOption>
  </ListboxOptions>
</Listbox>

Objects are compared by their id field unless you pass by. multiple switches the value to an array, name renders hidden inputs for native form submission, and --button-width matches the panel to its trigger.

Full code: examples/listbox-combobox.md

Pattern 4: Combobox

A text input plus a filtered dropdown. You own the filtering.

<Combobox value={selected} => setQuery("")}>
  <ComboboxInput
    displayValue={(item: Item | null) => item?.name ?? ""}
    => setQuery(e.target.value)}
  />
  <ComboboxOptions anchor="bottom" className="w-[var(--input-width)]">
    <ComboboxOption value={item} className="data-[focus]:bg-blue-100">
      {item.name}
    </ComboboxOption>
  </ComboboxOptions>
</Combobox>

onClose is where the query resets — onChange fires on selection, which is a different moment. virtual={{ options }} turns on built-in virtualisation, and ComboboxOptions then takes a render function instead of children.

Full code: examples/listbox-combobox.md

Pattern 5: Popover

Floating non-modal content, closed by outside click, Escape or tabbing out.

<Popover>
  <PopoverButton className="data-[open]:text-blue-600">Solutions</PopoverButton>
  <PopoverPanel
    anchor="bottom start"
    transition
    className="w-80 [--anchor-gap:8px] data-[closed]:opacity-0"
  >
    <CloseButton as="a" href="/analytics">
      Analytics
    </CloseButton>
  </PopoverPanel>
</Popover>

CloseButton closes the panel when it is activated, which is what navigation links inside a popover need. PopoverGroup keeps sibling popovers from closing each other on tab, and modal traps focus.

Full code: examples/popover-disclosure.md

Pattern 6: Tabs

<TabGroup>
  <TabList>
    <Tab className="px-3 py-2 data-[selected]:border-blue-500 data-[selected]:text-blue-600">
      Recent
    </Tab>
  </TabList>
  <TabPanels>
    <TabPanel>Content</TabPanel>
  </TabPanels>
</TabGroup>

Tab and TabPanel are matched by order. vertical switches navigation to Up/Down, manual requires Enter or Space instead of activating on focus, and selectedIndex / onChange make it controlled.

Full code: examples/tabs.md

Pattern 7: Disclosure

<Disclosure>
  <DisclosureButton className="group flex w-full justify-between px-4 py-2">
    Question text
    <span className="group-data-[open]:rotate-180" aria-hidden="true">
      &#9662;
    </span>
  </DisclosureButton>
  <DisclosurePanel transition className="duration-200 data-[closed]:opacity-0">
    Answer text
  </DisclosurePanel>
</Disclosure>

Each Disclosure owns its own state, so an accordion is a list of them and several can be open at once. defaultOpen sets the initial state.

Full code: examples/popover-disclosure.md

Pattern 8: Switch, RadioGroup and Checkbox

<Switch checked={enabled} name="notifications"
  className="group h-6 w-11 rounded-full bg-gray-200 data-[checked]:bg-blue-600">
  <span className="size-5 rounded-full bg-white group-data-[checked]:translate-x-5" />
</Switch>

<RadioGroup value={selected}
  <Radio value={option} className="data-[checked]:border-blue-500 data-[focus]:ring-2">
    <Label>{option.name}</Label>
  </Radio>
</RadioGroup>

<Checkbox checked={agreed} name="terms" indeterminate={isPartial}
  className="group size-5 rounded border data-[checked]:bg-blue-500" />

name renders the hidden input that makes the control part of native form submission. A parent-scoped variant (group-data-[checked]:) is how a child element reacts to the control's state.

Full code: examples/switch-radio.md

Pattern 9: Form fields

Field generates the ids and wires the ARIA relationships between label, description and control.

<Fieldset>
  <Legend>Shipping Details</Legend>
  <Field>
    <Label>Full name</Label>
    <Description>Helper text</Description>
    <Input name="name" className="data-[focus]:outline-2" />
  </Field>
  <Field disabled>
    <Label className="data-[disabled]:opacity-50">Promo code</Label>
    <Input className="data-[disabled]:bg-gray-100" />
  </Field>
</Fieldset>

No htmlFor and no manual id. disabled on the Field cascades to every child, and each one gets data-disabled to style from.

Full code: examples/forms.md

Pattern 10: Anchor positioning

<MenuItems anchor="bottom start" className="[--anchor-gap:8px]">
<MenuItems anchor={{ to: "bottom start", gap: 8, offset: 4, padding: 12 }}>
<ListboxOptions className="w-[var(--button-width)]">
<ComboboxOptions className="w-[var(--input-width)]">

A position is a side (top, bottom, left, right) optionally followed by start or end. The string form reads the --anchor-* custom properties off the panel, so a media query can change the gap without changing the markup; the object form takes the same values as numbers.

Full table: reference.md

Pattern 11: Styling from data attributes

Every component publishes its state as attributes, and the same eight cover most of the library: data-open, data-closed, data-focus, data-selected, data-checked, data-disabled, data-hover, data-active.

<MenuItem><button className="data-[focus]:bg-blue-100 data-[disabled]:opacity-50">Edit</button></MenuItem>
<DialogPanel transition className="duration-200 data-[closed]:opacity-0 data-[closed]:scale-95">

The attribute names are the contract; the selector syntax is your styling layer's. Plain CSS writes [data-focus] { … }; a utility-class framework writes the same thing through its attribute-variant syntax, which is what the examples in this skill use.

Full table, including which component publishes which attribute: reference.md

Red flags

Breaks at runtime:

• A Dialog without both open and onClose — it never opens, or never closes
• A dialog with no DialogTitle — nothing announces what the dialog is
• Filtering Combobox options inside the render without deriving them from the query state — the list goes stale against what was typed
• transition with no duration-* — the state flips with no animation, and the element can unmount before anything is visible
• Hand-rolled positioning on a floating panel instead of anchor — it does not flip or shift, so it clips at the viewport edge

Surprising behaviour:

• Render props for class toggling still work but re-render the subtree and cannot be used in a server component; the data-* attributes are the v2 answer
• The v1 Transition class props — enter, enterFrom, enterTo, leave, leaveFrom, leaveTo — are superseded by data-closed / data-enter / data-leave
• data-hover is deliberately not applied on touch devices, so hover styling never sticks
• data-active clears when the pointer drags off the element, unlike CSS :active
• data-changing on Switch and Checkbox is true for two frames only
• Dialog portals into #headlessui-portal-root on its own — there is no Portal component to add
• Listbox and Combobox compare objects by id; anything else needs by
• Tab renders a Fragment by default, so as="button" is what gives it an element to style
• Menu is for actions — a navigation panel is a Popover, and plain links are plain links
• Wiring id, htmlFor, aria-labelledby or aria-describedby by hand fights Field, which has already set them