postcss-sorting

PostCSS Sorting

PostCSS plugin to keep rules and at-rules content in order.

Lint and autofix stylesheet order with stylelint-order.

Features

• Sorts rules and at-rules content.
• Sorts properties.
• Sorts at-rules by different options.
• Groups properties, custom properties, dollar variables, nested rules, nested at-rules.
• Supports CSS, SCSS (using postcss-scss), CSS-in-JS (with postcss-styled-syntax), HTML (with postcss-html), and most likely any other syntax added by other PostCSS plugins.

Installation

npm install --save-dev postcss postcss-sorting

Options

The plugin has no default options. Everything is disabled by default.

• order: Specify the order of content within declaration blocks.
• properties-order: Specify the order of properties within declaration blocks.
• unspecified-properties-position: Specify position for properties not specified in properties-order.
• throw-validate-errors: Throw config validation errors instead of showing and ignoring them. Defaults to false.

Caveats

Handling comments

Comments that are before node and on a separate line linked to that node. Shared-line comments are also linked to that node. Shared-line comments are comments which are located after a node and on the same line as a node.

a {
	top: 5px; /* shared-line comment belongs to `top` */
	/* comment belongs to `bottom` */
	/* comment belongs to `bottom` */
	bottom: 15px; /* shared-line comment belongs to `bottom` */
}

Ignored at-rules

Some at-rules, like control and function directives in Sass, are ignored. It means rules won't touch content inside these at-rules, as doing so could change or break functionality.

CSS-in-JS

To avoid breaking the logic if the rule has a template literal interpolation, properties will be sorted only among neighbouring properties before or after the interpolation:

const Component = styled.div`
	/* 'z-index' and 'top' will be sorted as a single group. 'position' and 'display' will be sorted as a second group. Interpolation separates properties into groups. */
	z-index: 1;
	top: 1px;
	${props => props.great && 'color: red'};
	position: absolute;
	display: block;

	div {
		/* The following properties WILL be sorted together, because interpolation is for property value only */
		z-index: 2;
		position: static;
		top: ${2 + 10}px;
		display: inline-block;
	}
`;

Usage

See PostCSS docs for more examples.

Command Line

Add postcss-cli and PostCSS Sorting to your project:

npm install postcss postcss-cli postcss-sorting --save-dev

Create a postcss.config.js with PostCSS Sorting configuration:

module.exports = {
	plugins: {
		'postcss-sorting': {
			order: [
				'custom-properties',
				'dollar-variables',
				'declarations',
				'at-rules',
				'rules',
			],

			'properties-order': 'alphabetical',

			'unspecified-properties-position': 'bottom',
		},
	},
};

Or, add the 'postcss-sorting' section to your existing postcss-cli configuration file.

Next execute:

npx postcss --no-map --replace your-css-file.css

For more information and options, please consult the postcss-cli docs.

Gulp

Add gulp-postcss and PostCSS Sorting to your build tool:

npm install postcss gulp-postcss postcss-sorting --save-dev

Enable PostCSS Sorting within your Gulpfile:

let gulp = require('gulp');
let postcss = require('gulp-postcss');
let sorting = require('postcss-sorting');

exports['sort-css'] = () => {
	return gulp
		.src('./css/src/*.css')
		.pipe(
			postcss([
				sorting({
					/* options */
				}),
			])
		)
		.pipe(gulp.dest('./css/src'));
};

Text editor

This plugin available as Sublime Text, Atom, VS Code, and Emacs plugin. Though, seems all these plugins are not maintained.

Related tools

stylelint and stylelint-order help lint stylesheets and let you know if stylesheet order is correct. Also, they could autofix stylesheets.

I recommend Prettier for formatting stylesheets.

Similar packages

Other packages similar to postcss-sorting

stylelint-order

stylelint-order is a plugin for stylelint that checks the order of content within declaration blocks. While it does not automatically sort properties, it can enforce a specific order and report when the order is incorrect.

csscomb

csscomb is a coding style formatter for CSS. Similar to postcss-sorting, it can sort properties according to a specific order. However, csscomb is not a PostCSS plugin and works as a standalone tool or integrated with other code editors.

perfectionist

perfectionist is another PostCSS plugin that beautifies CSS by formatting it according to a consistent standard. It includes sorting capabilities but also focuses on other aspects of beautification, such as indentation and whitespace.