Combobox

A text input that filters a list. Built on `@base-ui/react/combobox`: Base UI owns the filtering (`Intl.Collator`-backed `useFilter`), the combobox/listbox ARIA pairing, VIRTUAL focus (the input keeps DOM focus and `aria-activedescendant` moves), single +…

form & inputclient320pxuiv1.0.0

Preview

Combobox — live renderprimitives-combobox--default

Rendered from the story the storybook (a11y) CI gate runs axe against — the preview can't show something that hasn't been verified.

Install

Two equivalent paths — the URL works in any shadcn-CLI setup; the alias works once you've registered @interlace in your components.json.

Via shadcn URL
npx shadcn@latest add https://ds.interlace.tools/r/combobox.json
With the @interlace alias
npx shadcn@latest add @interlace/combobox

Behavior

What this component does — the keyboard path, the measured colour, the text equivalent and the states it can be in. Every figure below is read out of the test or the source that enforces it by scripts/build-behavior-map.mjs, so nothing here can outlive the gate that keeps it true.

6 steps, 5 key presses — replayed on every PR by the play function of KeyboardFlow. Axe cannot press a key, so this — not the a11y scan — is what proves the component is operable without a mouse.

  1. 1The input advertises the listbox it owns
  2. 2Typing opens the popup and filtersTab
  3. 3ArrowDown highlights WITHOUT moving DOM focusArrowDown
  4. 4Enter commits the highlighted item and closesEnter
  5. 5Escape on a closed popup clears the fieldEscape
  6. 6Escape while open closes the popup, not the pageEscape

Escape is locked, not merely exercised. This primitive is in KEYBOARD_DRIVEN + MUST_ASSERT_ESCAPE — deleting the dismissal assertion from the story fails overlay-nav-keyboard-lock, so the path above cannot quietly stop being tested.

Every semantic colour pair this component's own source uses, measured against the shipped hexes in all 4 theme × scheme combinations. The tightest is input on card at 3.11:1 (interlace · dark), against a floor of 3:1.

Measured WCAG contrast ratios per token pair and theme
PairinterlacelightinterlacedarkharborlightharbordarkFloor
input on cardcontrol border inside a card3.62:13.11:13.62:13.85:13.0:1SC 1.4.11
input on backgroundcontrol border (SC 1.4.11)3.62:13.35:13.43:14.25:13.0:1SC 1.4.11
destructive on backgrounddestructive tint on the page surface8.31:110.43:17.60:110.03:13.0:1SC 1.4.11
muted-foreground on backgroundsecondary copy9.41:111.32:17.82:19.52:14.5:1SC 1.4.3
destructive on carddestructive tint inside a card8.31:19.66:18.02:19.09:13.0:1SC 1.4.11
muted-foreground on cardsecondary copy in a card9.41:110.48:18.25:18.64:14.5:1SC 1.4.3
ring on backgroundfocus ring (SC 2.4.13)8.80:111.79:18.39:110.03:13.0:1SC 1.4.11
primary on backgroundprimary tint on the page surface8.80:111.79:18.39:110.03:13.0:1SC 1.4.11
ring on cardfocus ring inside a card8.80:110.92:18.86:19.10:13.0:1SC 1.4.11
primary-foreground on primarycopy on a primary face8.80:111.79:18.86:110.03:14.5:1SC 1.4.3
primary on cardprimary tint inside a card8.80:110.92:18.86:19.10:13.0:1SC 1.4.11
accent-foreground on accenthover/highlight face8.98:110.46:18.95:19.65:14.5:1SC 1.4.3
secondary-foreground on secondarysecondary button face15.58:114.51:114.63:114.04:14.5:1SC 1.4.3
popover-foreground on popovercopy in a popover19.65:115.71:118.72:114.69:14.5:1SC 1.4.3
foreground on backgroundbody copy19.65:116.97:117.74:116.19:14.5:1SC 1.4.3

Text pairs are held to 4.5:1 (WCAG 2.2 SC 1.4.3); borders, rings and chart axes to 3:1 (SC 1.4.11 non-text). Bold is the worst cell in the row — the one a brand fork has to keep an eye on.

A chart's alt text is not a sentence about the chart — the equivalent of the data is the data. This is what a screen reader gets, read out of the source the install writes into your tree.

Label, not a data equivalentShips sr-only copy

Ships sr-only copy for what the visual carries by position, colour or icon alone — a label, not a full data equivalent.

Where it renders, how narrow it survives, and whether its lines are inside the coverage gate — three answers a consumer needs before the paste, not after the bug.

Render boundary
'use client'

Hydrates. It brings JavaScript to any route that imports it — put the boundary here, not at the page.

Minimum viewport
MIN_VIEWPORT = 320

Declared, not assumed. Below 320 CSS px the preflight contract draws a dev-mode outline — how to switch it on.

Coverage gate
not in the gate

The 100% gate currently covers src/charts/**/*.{ts,tsx} and src/lib/**/*.{ts,tsx} and src/primitives/{button-variants,data-state-model,meter-scale,skeleton-variants}.ts and src/primitives/{alert,aspect-ratio,avatar,badge,box,breadcrumb,button,callout,card,checkbox,container,data-state,focus-ring,grade-badge,grid,input,label,meter,pagination,published-date,reading-time,section,section-boundary,separator,skip-link,stack,stat-strip,tag,textarea,typography,visually-hidden}.tsx. This file is outside it — the glob widens in phase 7.2.

History

This component is at v1.0.0, first shipped in @interlace/ui 1.1.0. The version is stamped as a banner into the file the install writes, so the copy in your tree says which one you have — compare it with the number above before deciding whether to re-run the install.

@interlace/ui 1.1.01 entry

  • Addedminor

    New Combobox and CommandPalette. Combobox mirrors Select part-for-part, plus one part that is ours rather than Base UI's: ComboboxControl, a relative row. Base UI has no concept of "the input plus the affordances docked inside its border", and without it ComboboxClear and ComboboxTrigger sit beside the field instead of in it. The root is aliased rather than wrapped so the <Value, Multiple> generics survive at the call site. CommandPalette is a composition, not a new primitive: DialogContent supplies the portal, backdrop, focus trap, Escape and focus restore, wrapped around Combobox.Root in **inline** mode. That flag is load-bearing — without it the combobox handles Escape for a popup that is not open and the dialog never closes, a WCAG 2.1.2 keyboard trap. closeOnSelect closes by clicking a hidden DialogClose rather than calling setOpen, so it routes through Base UI's own close path: onOpenChange fires with a real reason, focus restores exactly as for Escape, and the uncontrolled case works. The ⌘K binding is a separate opt-in hook. A design system should not seize a global chord on mount from every app that installs it. Three rows of the keyboard contract differ from Select and are the ones callers get wrong: Home/End move the text caret rather than the highlight; Escape on a _closed_ popup clears the input and the selection; focus never enters the list — it is virtual focus via aria-activedescendant.

Import

22 named exports — pull the parts you need.

Public API
import { Combobox, ComboboxChip, ComboboxChipRemove, ComboboxChips, ComboboxClear, ComboboxCollection, ComboboxCompose, ComboboxContent, ComboboxControl, ComboboxEmpty, ComboboxGroup, ComboboxGroupLabel, ComboboxIcon, ComboboxInput, ComboboxItem, ComboboxList, ComboboxPortal, ComboboxSeparator, ComboboxStatus, ComboboxTrigger, ComboboxValue, MIN_VIEWPORT } from '@/components/ui/combobox';

Anatomy

Extracted from the primitive's JSDoc header. The source is the only documentation that can't drift.

Combobox (Root)                          (no DOM — state + filtering)
    ├─ ComboboxChips                       (multiple only)
    │   └─ ComboboxChip → ComboboxChipRemove
    ├─ ComboboxControl                     (ours — relative row, no Base UI part)
    │   ├─ ComboboxInput                   (input — data-min-viewport=320)
    │   ├─ ComboboxClear                   (button, keepMounted=false)
    │   └─ ComboboxTrigger → ComboboxIcon  (optional open button)
    └─ ComboboxContent                     (portal → positioner → popup)
        ├─ ComboboxEmpty                   (renders only when 0 results)
        ├─ ComboboxStatus                  (polite live region — async lists)
        └─ ComboboxList
            ├─ ComboboxGroup → ComboboxGroupLabel
            ├─ ComboboxItem                (repeats)
            └─ ComboboxSeparator

API reference

Parsed from the type declarations in the source — the same file the install writes into your tree, so this table can't drift from the component you get.

ComboboxComposeProps

PropTypeDescription
items*readonly ComboboxComposeItem[]The full, unfiltered list. Base UI filters it against the query.
placeholderstringPlaceholder for the text input.
emptyMessageReact.ReactNodeShown when the query matches nothing.
defaultValueComboboxComposeItem | nullAccessible name for the input. Required — the field has no visible label. */ 'aria-label'?: string; /** Initially selected item. Uncontrolled.
valueComboboxComposeItem | nullSelected item. Controlled — pair with `onValueChange`.
onValueChange(value: ComboboxComposeItem | null) => voidFired with the newly selected item, or `null` when cleared.
namestringForm field name — projected onto the hidden input.
disabledbooleanIgnore all interaction.
clearablebooleanShow a clear button once the field has a value.
classNamestringOverride the control className (width).

Accessibility

Every story for this component is rendered headlessly and checked with axe-core (wcag2aa, wcag22aa, best-practice, ACT) on every PR. That gate has no continue-on-error, so what ships has zero known violations.

What follows is what static analysis can see. Axe cannot press a key and never sees an overlay open, so the operable-without-a-mouse claim lives in Behavior instead, where the keyboard path is replayed step by step.

Focus + keyboard behaviour
Owned by @base-ui/react/combobox — focus trapping, dismissal and typeahead come from the headless primitive, not from us.
Focus ring (WCAG 2.2 SC 2.4.13)
Inherited from the preflight focus contract shipped in @interlace/theme.
Reduced motion
No animation to gate.
ARIA in the source
  • role="status"
  • aria-invalid
  • aria-label
  • aria-live

Examples

10 more states from the same story file.

R-rule compliance

Every primitive in @interlace/ui models to the portable 26-rule floor enforced by the componentApi ESLint preset. The cells below pin exactly where each rule applies in this file.

RuleConceptWhere
R4Extends Base UI part propseach wrapper extends its Base UI part's props
R6data-slot per part`combobox-input` / `-control` / `-popup` / `-item` / …
R7className merged + ...rest`cn(BASE, className)` + `{...props}` on every part
R8No `isXxx` prefix on booleans`multiple`, `disabled`, `readOnly` — inherited, no `is`
R11Composition over prop-drillingitems are children; `ComboboxCompose` is the escape hatch
R12Reuse over wrapBase UI owns filtering, ARIA, virtual focus, chips
R14Controlled + uncontrolled`value`/`onValueChange` + `defaultValue`, ditto `inputValue`
R17API parity with shadcnpart names mirror shadcn's Command/Combobox surface
R18Tailwind onlyzero inline `style`
R19Tokens onlysemantic colour tokens throughout — no raw hex
R20AA contrasttable above — every composite measured
R25Client componentrequired — Base UI Combobox ships client hooks
R26A11y from upstreamcombobox/listbox ARIA + the full keyboard model

Minimum viewport

This primitive declares MIN_VIEWPORT = 320 CSS px (DESIGN_PRINCIPLES #14). When mounted in a container narrower than this, the preflight contract draws a dev-mode outline so the regression is visible during local development.

Opt-in to the dev-mode warning
<body data-interlace-dev>...</body>

Add the data-interlace-dev attribute to the body in development builds only — preflight then outlines any primitive whose container is below its declared data-min-viewport.

Dependencies

Base UI primitive
@base-ui/react/combobox
Lucide icons
  • CheckIcon
  • ChevronDownIcon
  • XIcon
NPM dependencies
  • @base-ui/react
  • lucide-react
Registry dependencies

Source

The full implementation — components/ui/combobox.tsx once installed.

661 lines · TypeScript
'use client';

import * as React from 'react';

// @interlace/combobox v1.0.0 — Interlace design system.
// Docs, props and live preview: https://ds.interlace.tools/c/combobox
// What changed since: https://ds.interlace.tools/c/combobox#history
// Generated banner — keep it, the upgrade diff reads this version.

/**
 * @interlace/ui — Combobox
 *
 * A text input that filters a list. Built on `@base-ui/react/combobox`: Base UI
 * owns the filtering (`Intl.Collator`-backed `useFilter`), the
 * combobox/listbox ARIA pairing, VIRTUAL focus (the input keeps DOM focus and
 * `aria-activedescendant` moves), single + multiple selection, chips, and the
 * whole keyboard model. We own the surface — size, tokens, focus ring, target
 * sizes.
 * Mirrors: https://ui.shadcn.com/docs/components/combobox
 *

…641 more lines…

Registry JSON

The raw registry record — what the shadcn CLI fetches.