Getting started

From zero to a branded design system in under 10 minutes.

1. Install

Clone the repo and install dependencies. Emily has no runtime dependencies — Node is only needed to generate your CSS.

Terminal
git clone https://github.com/andyjterry/emilyui.git my-project
cd my-project
npm install

2. Set up your config

Run the interactive setup wizard to define your brand colours, fonts, and spacing. This creates emily.config.json in your project.

Terminal
npx emilyui init

3. Generate your CSS

Build generates 11,000+ utility classes scoped to your brand config and outputs them to the dist/ folder.

Terminal
npx emilyui build

4. Link the stylesheet

Add the generated CSS to your project. Use the full build during development, the purged version in production.

HTML
<link rel="stylesheet" href="dist/emily.css">
<!-- or purged (production) -->
<link rel="stylesheet" href="dist/emily.purged.css">

5. Reduce file size for production

The purge system scans your HTML and templates, removes every utility class you don't use, and outputs a stripped stylesheet. Typical reduction: 1.1 MB → 30–50 KB.

Terminal
npx emilyui build --purge ./src

Next step

Head to the component browser to browse components and copy the HTML directly into your project.