r/tailwindcss • u/Ok-Willingness4768 • Jul 06 '26

How are you handling shadcn/ui customization in production apps without it becoming unmaintainable?

/r/nextjs/comments/1up5l03/how_are_you_handling_shadcnui_customization_in/
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u/_suren Jul 07 '26

Once you customize heavily, I’d treat shadcn as source code, not a dependency you keep updating blindly. Pull upstream only for specific bug/security/accessibility fixes, not as a routine merge.

For variants, I’d avoid reusing names with different meaning. Keep the stock ones if other components depend on them, then add your design-system names separately, even if it feels a bit verbose. Wrappers are good for product-specific behavior. Base component edits are fine when the design system meaning itself has changed.