Grid Beams
A faint grid with ember beams of light running along its lines.
- Category: Backgrounds
- Licence: Charcoal UI Pro
- Built with: React 19, Tailwind CSS 4, Motion
- Dependencies: motion, clsx, tailwind-merge
Examples
Grid Beams
API reference
| Prop | Type | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
cell | number | 48 | |
beams | number | 6 |
About Grid Beams
Grid Beams draws a faint grid with beams of light running along its lines, the developer-tool hero background done subtly.
Grid Beams is an animated background 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 Grid Beams
- Developer tool and API heroes.
- Infrastructure and cloud products.
- Hackathon and tech event pages.
- Docs landing pages.
How it works
The grid is a CSS background and beams are short gradients travelling along lines on staggered delays. It is pure CSS, so it costs almost nothing to keep running, and it stops under reduced motion.
The whole layer is decorative and aria-hidden, sits behind your content without taking pointer events it does not need, and pauses when scrolled off screen. With prefers-reduced-motion on, it holds still or settles instantly instead of animating.
Customizing Grid Beams
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.
- cell (number, default 48).
- beams (number, default 6).
Goes well with Grid Beams
Grid Beams is already composed into a ready-made section, so you can see it in context or install the whole block.
- Hero Terminal: Hero section
- Ember Field: An animated React ember background: glowing embers drift up and flicker as they cool
- Smoke: A slow React smoke background: blurred plumes drifting over dark sections, CSS only
- Aurora: An animated React aurora background: soft light bands drifting across a section
- Meteors: A React meteor shower background: streaks falling diagonally, CSS only
- Wave Lines: An animated React wave lines background: layered sine lines drifting sideways
Install Grid Beams
npx shadcn@latest add @charcoal/grid-beamsGrid Beams 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 grid-beams.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 Grid Beams?
- Grid Beams is part of Charcoal UI Pro. Add the @charcoal registry to components.json with your access token, then run npx shadcn@latest add @charcoal/grid-beams. It copies grid-beams.tsx into components/ui and installs motion, clsx, tailwind-merge.
- Is Grid Beams free for commercial use?
- Grid Beams 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 Grid Beams 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 Grid Beams?
- Yes. Connect the Charcoal UI MCP server (https://charcoalui.com/mcp) to Claude Code, Cursor or any MCP client; get_component returns Grid Beams's props and get_install_command returns the exact command.