vitepress/docs/en/guide/extending-default-theme.md

outline	description
deep	Customize and extend the VitePress default theme with custom CSS, components, layouts, and slots.

Extending the Default Theme

VitePress' default theme is optimized for documentation, and can be customized. Consult the Default Theme Config Overview for a comprehensive list of options.

However, there are a number of cases where configuration alone won't be enough. For example:

1. You need to tweak the CSS styling;
2. You need to modify the Vue app instance, for example to register global components;
3. You need to inject custom content into the theme via layout slots.

These advanced customizations will require using a custom theme that "extends" the default theme.

::: tip Before proceeding, make sure to first read Using a Custom Theme to understand how custom themes work. :::

Customizing CSS

The default theme CSS is customizable by overriding root level CSS variables:

import DefaultTheme from 'vitepress/theme'
import './custom.css'

export default DefaultTheme

/* .vitepress/theme/custom.css */
:root {
  --vp-c-brand-1: #646cff;
  --vp-c-brand-2: #747bff;
}

See default theme CSS variables that can be overridden.

Navbar

The navbar draws a single background surface controlled by CSS variables, so its look can be changed without touching component internals:

:root {
  /* bar height and background */
  --vp-nav-height: 4rem;
  --vp-nav-bg-color: var(--vp-c-bg);

  /* background while on top of the home page (unscrolled);
     set to var(--vp-nav-bg-color) to opt out of the transparent treatment */
  --vp-nav-home-bg-color: transparent;

  /* filter applied to the content behind the bar */
  --vp-nav-backdrop-filter: none;

  /* the bar's bottom rule and the mobile menu background */
  --vp-nav-divider-color: var(--vp-c-gutter);
  --vp-nav-screen-bg-color: var(--vp-c-bg);
}

For example, a frosted-glass navbar:

:root {
  --vp-nav-bg-color: color-mix(in srgb, var(--vp-c-bg) 65%, transparent);
  --vp-nav-backdrop-filter: saturate(180%) blur(8px);
}

The same treatment carries over to the local nav: --vp-local-nav-bg-color follows the navbar surface color by default, and where the two bars meet they share a single blurred surface, so the glass stays continuous across them.

::: warning backdrop-filter has a measurable scroll performance cost, especially on large or high-DPI screens. When using a translucent bar, also check text contrast over your page content. Safari 17 and earlier don't apply variable-driven backdrop filters, so they show the translucent color without the blur. :::

When the nav items don't fit the available width, they move into the ⋯ menu at the end of the navbar instead of being clipped, starting with the social links, the appearance switch and the locale switcher, followed by the nav items right-to-left. Its button label can be localized with extraMenuLabel.

Using Different Fonts

VitePress uses Inter as the default font, and will include the fonts in the build output. The font is also auto preloaded in production. However, this may not be desirable if you want to use a different main font.

To avoid including Inter in the build output, import the theme from vitepress/theme-without-fonts instead:

import DefaultTheme from 'vitepress/theme-without-fonts'
import './my-fonts.css'

export default DefaultTheme

/* .vitepress/theme/my-fonts.css */
:root {
  --vp-font-family-base: /* normal text font */
  --vp-font-family-mono: /* code font */
}

::: warning If you are using optional components like the Team Page components, make sure to also import them from vitepress/theme-without-fonts! :::

If your font is a local file referenced via @font-face, it will be processed as an asset and included under .vitepress/dist/assets with hashed filename. To preload this file, use the transformHead build hook:

export default {
  transformHead({ assets }) {
    // adjust the regex accordingly to match your font
    const myFontFile = assets.find(file => /font-name\.[\w-]+\.woff2/.test(file))
    if (myFontFile) {
      return [
        [
          'link',
          {
            rel: 'preload',
            href: myFontFile,
            as: 'font',
            type: 'font/woff2',
            crossorigin: ''
          }
        ]
      ]
    }
  }
}

Registering Global Components

import DefaultTheme from 'vitepress/theme'

/** @type {import('vitepress').Theme} */
export default {
  extends: DefaultTheme,
  enhanceApp({ app }) {
    // register your custom global components
    app.component('MyGlobalComponent' /* ... */)
  }
}

If you're using TypeScript:

import type { Theme } from 'vitepress'
import DefaultTheme from 'vitepress/theme'

export default {
  extends: DefaultTheme,
  enhanceApp({ app }) {
    // register your custom global components
    app.component('MyGlobalComponent' /* ... */)
  }
} satisfies Theme

Since we are using Vite, you can also leverage Vite's glob import feature to auto register a directory of components.

Layout Slots

The default theme's <Layout/> component has a few slots that can be used to inject content at certain locations of the page. Here's an example of injecting a component into the before outline:

import DefaultTheme from 'vitepress/theme'
import MyLayout from './MyLayout.vue'

export default {
  extends: DefaultTheme,
  // override the Layout with a wrapper component that
  // injects the slots
  Layout: MyLayout
}

<script setup>
import DefaultTheme from 'vitepress/theme'

const { Layout } = DefaultTheme
</script>

<template>
  <Layout>
    <template #aside-outline-before>
      My custom sidebar top content
    </template>
  </Layout>
</template>

Or you could use render function as well.

import { h } from 'vue'
import DefaultTheme from 'vitepress/theme'
import MyComponent from './MyComponent.vue'

export default {
  extends: DefaultTheme,
  Layout() {
    return h(DefaultTheme.Layout, null, {
      'aside-outline-before': () => h(MyComponent)
    })
  }
}

Full list of slots available in the default theme layout:

• When layout: 'doc' (default) is enabled via frontmatter:
  • doc-top
  • doc-bottom
  • doc-footer-before
  • doc-before
  • doc-after
  • sidebar-nav-before
  • sidebar-nav-after
  • aside-top
  • aside-bottom
  • aside-outline-before
  • aside-outline-after
  • aside-ads-before
  • aside-ads-after
• When layout: 'home' is enabled via frontmatter:
  • home-hero-before
  • home-hero-info-before
  • home-hero-info
  • home-hero-info-after
  • home-hero-actions-before-actions
  • home-hero-actions-after
  • home-hero-image
  • home-hero-after
  • home-features-before
  • home-features-after
• When layout: 'page' is enabled via frontmatter:
  • page-top
  • page-bottom
• Always:
  • layout-top
  • layout-bottom
  • nav-bar-title-before
  • nav-bar-title-after
  • nav-bar-content-before
  • nav-bar-content-after
  • nav-screen-content-before
  • nav-screen-content-after

Using View Transitions API

On Appearance Toggle

You can extend the default theme to provide a custom transition when the color mode is toggled. An example:

<<< @/components/AppearanceToggleTransition.vue [.vitepress/theme/Layout.vue]

Result (warning!: flashing colors, sudden movements, bright lights):

Demo

Refer Chrome Docs from more details on view transitions.

On Route Change

Coming soon.

Overriding Internal Components

You can use Vite's aliases to replace default theme components with your custom ones:

import { fileURLToPath, URL } from 'node:url'
import { defineConfig } from 'vitepress'

export default defineConfig({
  vite: {
    resolve: {
      alias: [
        {
          find: /^.*\/VPNavBar\.vue$/,
          replacement: fileURLToPath(
            new URL('./theme/components/CustomNavBar.vue', import.meta.url)
          )
        }
      ]
    }
  }
})

To know the exact name of the component refer our source code. Since the components are internal, there is a slight chance their name is updated between minor releases.