Border Beam
A beam of coloured light that rides the border of any card, input or button, with a soft glow outside and an optional wash inside. Nine palettes, rotate or pulse.
- Category: Display
- Licence: Charcoal UI Pro
- Built with: React 19, Tailwind CSS 4, Motion
- Dependencies: motion, clsx, tailwind-merge
Examples
AI prompt
Large size: the beam lights the edge, glows outside and washes faintly inside.
Search and buttons
Pulse on a search field, a line beam on a stop button, ember on a busy button.
Palettes
Every built-in palette.
Playground
API reference
| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
family | "rotate" | "pulse" | "rotate" | Rotate circles the border; pulse breathes along the bottom edge. |
size | "line" | "sm" | "lg" | "sm" | Line is the edge only; sm adds an outer glow; lg also washes light inside. |
colors | BeamPalette | string[] | "colorful" | ember, colorful, mono, ocean, sunset, forest, candy, ice, gold, or your own colours. |
duration | number | — | Seconds per lap or breath. 3 for rotate, 2.4 for pulse. |
arc | number | 90 | Beam length in degrees. |
width | number | 1 | Border thickness in px. |
brightness | number | 1.2 | |
hueShift | number | 0 | Degrees around the colour wheel. |
active | boolean | true | Fades the beam out when false. |
About Border Beam
Border Beam sends a beam of coloured light around the border of any card, input or button, with a soft outer glow and an optional inner wash. Nine palettes, rotate or pulse.
Border Beam is a display component for React 19, styled with Tailwind CSS 4 and animated with Motion. It drops into Next.js, Vite, Remix or Astro through the shadcn CLI as a single file you own.
When to use Border Beam
- AI prompt boxes and inputs.
- Featured cards.
- Premium buttons.
- Loading and thinking states.
How it works
The beam is a conic gradient masked to the border, with blurred copies for the glow. Palettes are presets of stops, and the motion mode switches between rotating and pulsing.
Interactive parts are buttons or links with accessible names, decorative layers are hidden from assistive tech, and everything is reachable by keyboard. With prefers-reduced-motion on, it holds still or settles instantly instead of animating.
Customizing Border Beam
Every prop is documented in the API reference above with its type and default. The ones you will reach for first are listed here.
Style it with className like any other element. It only uses your theme's tokens, so it follows light and dark mode without extra work.
- family ("rotate" | "pulse", default "rotate"): Rotate circles the border; pulse breathes along the bottom edge.
- size ("line" | "sm" | "lg", default "sm"): Line is the edge only; sm adds an outer glow; lg also washes light inside.
- colors (BeamPalette | string[], default "colorful"): ember, colorful, mono, ocean, sunset, forest, candy, ice, gold, or your own colours.
- duration (number): Seconds per lap or breath. 3 for rotate, 2.4 for pulse.
- arc (number, default 90): Beam length in degrees.
- width (number, default 1): Border thickness in px.
4 examples on this page
- AI prompt: Large size: the beam lights the edge, glows outside and washes faintly inside.
- Search and buttons: Pulse on a search field, a line beam on a stop button, ember on a busy button.
- Palettes: Every built-in palette.
- Playground.
Goes well with Border Beam
Border Beam is already composed into 2 ready-made sections, so you can see it in context or install the whole block.
- Hero Landscape: Hero section
- Pricing Lifetime: Pricing section
- Tilt Card: A 3D tilt card for React that leans toward the pointer with a moving glare
- Spotlight Card: A React spotlight card: an accent glow follows the pointer across card and border
- Sortable List: A drag-to-reorder React list with lifted shadows and keyboard sorting
- Card Stack: A swipeable React card stack where the next card rises to meet you
- Image Compare: A React before and after image comparison slider you can drag anywhere
Install Border Beam
npx shadcn@latest add @charcoal/border-beamBorder Beam is part of Charcoal UI Pro. One seat unlocks all 300 Pro components, 107 landing-page sections and 100 full templates, for every personal and client project, with updates included. Add the @charcoal registry once with your access token, then the command above copies border-beam.tsx into components/ui and installs clsx, tailwind-merge.
You own the file you install: no runtime package, no lock-in, nothing to keep in sync. Change it however your product needs.
See Charcoal UI Pro pricing · Pro setup
Frequently asked questions
- How do I install Border Beam?
- Border Beam is part of Charcoal UI Pro. Add the @charcoal registry to components.json with your access token, then run npx shadcn@latest add @charcoal/border-beam. It copies border-beam.tsx into components/ui and installs motion, clsx, tailwind-merge.
- Is Border Beam free for commercial use?
- Border Beam needs a Charcoal UI Pro seat, monthly or a one-time lifetime price. A seat covers unlimited personal and commercial projects, including client work, and every future Pro component.
- Does Border Beam work with Next.js?
- Yes. It is a client component for React 19 styled with Tailwind CSS 4, so it works in the Next.js App Router and Pages Router, Vite, Remix and Astro.
- Can an AI coding agent install Border Beam?
- Yes. Connect the Charcoal UI MCP server (https://charcoalui.com/mcp) to Claude Code, Cursor or any MCP client; get_component returns Border Beam's props and get_install_command returns the exact command.