ask-sonner

name

ask-sonner

description

Guide to Sonner, the React toast library — install and wire up the Toaster, pick the right toast() call, promise and loading toasts, updating, dismissing and persisting toasts, styling, theming and icons, positioning and multiple toasters. Use when working with Sonner or troubleshooting it — toasts that don't appear, appear twice, lose their styles, ignore Tailwind classes, sit behind a modal, or don't follow dark mode.

Working With Sonner

A guide skill for Sonner, the toast library. When a task involves Sonner — wiring it up, rendering toasts, styling them, or fixing them — answer from this file first. Full prop tables for <Toaster /> and toast() live in API.md; read it when you need an exact prop name, type, or default.

Setup

Two pieces, and only two:

1. One <Toaster />, mounted once, as close to the root as possible (in Next.js: layout.tsx — it works inside server components). Never render it per-page or conditionally; a second mounted Toaster duplicates every toast.
2. toast() called from client code — event handlers, effects, callbacks. It's a plain function, no hook or provider needed, but it does nothing on the server: in a server action, return the result and call toast() in the client code that receives it.

import { Toaster } from 'sonner'; // once, in layout
import { toast } from 'sonner';   // anywhere client-side

Picking the right call

You want	Call
Plain message	toast('Title') — add { description } for a second line
Success / error / info / warning icon	toast.success('…'), toast.error('…'), etc.
Spinner while you manage state yourself	toast.loading('…'), then update it by id
Loading → success/error tied to a promise	toast.promise(promise, { loading, success, error }) — success/error accept functions receiving the resolved value/error
Button that does something	{ action: { label, onClick } } — closes the toast unless onClick calls event.preventDefault(); cancel is the secondary variant
Custom JSX, default toast shell	toast(<jsx />)
Custom JSX, no styles at all	toast.custom((t) => <jsx />) — headless, t gives you the id to dismiss

Recipes

Update a toast — call toast() again with the same id; only the props you pass change. Switching to toast.success(…, { id }) changes the type. This is how loading → success flows work without toast.promise:

const id = toast.loading('Uploading…');
toast.success('Uploaded', { id });

Persist — { duration: Infinity }. Dismiss — toast.dismiss(id), or toast.dismiss() for all. Read active toasts — useSonner() in React, toast.getActiveToasts() outside it.

Links or components in the text — pass a function for the title or description: toast(() => <a href="…">View</a>).

Multiple toasters — give each an id and target with toast('…', { toasterId: 'canvas' }). Without toasterId, every toaster renders the toast.

Close callbacks — onDismiss fires on close button or swipe; onAutoClose fires on timeout. They are separate; there is no single "closed" callback.

Styling — the escalation ladder

Climb only as far as the change requires; jumping to the top rung too early is fine (it's the recommended end state), lingering in the middle is not.

1. Defaults — plus richColors on the Toaster for colorful success/error, invert to flip against the theme.
2. Inline tweaks — toastOptions={{ style: {…} }} on the Toaster for all toasts, or style per toast() call.
3. Classes on parts — toastOptions={{ classNames: { toast, title, description, actionButton, cancelButton, closeButton } }}. Sonner's injected styles win the cascade, so every class needs !important (Tailwind: !text-red-900). If you're marking more than a few things important, stop — go headless.
4. Headless — toast.custom() with your own JSX, keeping Sonner's positioning, stacking, and swipe. The recommended approach for a design-system toast: wrap it in your own toast() abstraction. (unstyled: true exists as a halfway house, but headless gives more control for the same effort.)

Icons — swap defaults per-type with the Toaster's icons prop, per-toast with icon, remove with null.

Theme — theme defaults to 'light' and does not track the OS. Pass theme="system", or wire your theme provider: <Toaster theme={resolvedTheme} /> from next-themes.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Cause → fix
Toast never appears	No <Toaster /> mounted, or it unmounted (conditional render, per-page placement). Mount one at the root. If calling from a server action: toast() is client-only — call it with the action's result on the client.
Same toast appears twice	Two Toasters mounted (layout and page) — keep one. Or toast() fired in an effect under React StrictMode's dev double-invoke — fire from the event handler instead, or pass a stable id so the second call updates rather than duplicates.
Tailwind/CSS classes have no effect	Default styles override them. Mark them !important, or use unstyled / headless (see the ladder above).
Toasts render completely unstyled (common in Astro, view transitions)	Sonner's injected stylesheet was lost — import it explicitly in a layout: import 'sonner/dist/styles.css'.
Unstyled inside Shadow DOM	Styles land in document.head, not the shadow root. Copy the style tag whose text includes [data-sonner-toaster] into the shadow root.
Toast behind a modal/overlay, or clipped	An ancestor creates a stacking context (transform, filter, overflow) or the overlay out-z-indexes the toaster. Move <Toaster /> to the document root, outside any dialog/portal container.
Dark mode ignored	theme defaults to 'light' — set theme="system" or pass the resolved theme (see Theme above).
Success/error look gray, not green/red	That's the default. Add richColors to the Toaster.
Toast never closes	duration: Infinity, dismissible: false, or a toast.promise whose promise never settles — the loading toast waits forever.
toast.promise stuck on loading	It needs a promise (or a function returning one) as its first argument, and the promise must actually resolve/reject.
Swipe-to-dismiss goes the wrong way / doesn't work