Skeleton Update - September 2025

[endigo9740]

Hey everyone, Chris here from Skeleton. The goal of this post is to highlight the biggest updates that have occurred over the last month, as well as preview any upcoming initiatives. As usual, there's a lot to cover this month, so let's get started.

Skeleton v4 Updates

I'm happy to report that progress on Skeleton v4 is well underway. We'll cover each notable update below.

Component Preview launched

First up, we recently launched our new v4 component preview. If you missed it, you may find the announcement here:

• Skeleton v4 Early Preview #3634

And view code samples and more details on the new preview documentation section:

https://www.skeleton.dev/docs/get-started/v4-early-preview

This covers:

• The new composed component syntax
• Our new simpler approach to styling
• How you extend the component markup
• And how to implement custom animations

Note that last point is a recent addition, and we'll cover it in more detail below.

Component Contribution Updates

As of yesterday, we're now accepting new contributions from users that wish to help port our Svelte and React components to the new v4 format. If you're interest in doing so, we recommend you start by viewing our updated contribution guidelines.

https://next.skeleton.dev/docs/resources/contribute/components

Additionally, we have a running list of component assignments on GitHub. If you're interested in contributing to one of these components, please reach out to the Skeleton team either via the respective component ticket on GitHub for via the Discord #contributions channel please. We're happy to help you get started!

• Update Components to v4 Format #3635

Note that we are only accepting volunteers for updating existing components, that way we can hit parity with v3 asap.

Custom Animation Support

If you caught our recent announcement of the v4 preview, we encourage you to check out this new addition to the documentation. We now cover how custom animations will work in v4:

https://www.skeleton.dev/docs/get-started/v4-early-preview#custom-animations

This made possible by the extensible markup improvement coming in v4, which allows you to override the built-in component HTML markup with your own. By doing this it opens up the door to any animation solution you wish to use. Be that Svelte Transitions, framework agnostic solutions like Motion, or even implementing your own custom CSS or JS animations. The choice is yours.

Documentation Updates

Additionally, we've made updates to the API reference table for each component:

https://next.skeleton.dev/docs/components/avatar/svelte#api-reference

Aside from minor visual updates, this also details the COMPLETE class list per each component element. This lets you know exactly what styles are implemented by default if you wish to overwrite each with the standard class attribute.

How to Test v4

Warning

Please be aware Skeleton v4 is in an early preview state and not ready for production.

If you're interested in test driving v4, this is possible by following the standard onboarding instructions for your framework of choice. Just make sure to append @next to the end of the core and component packages.

• React: npm i -D @skeletonlabs/skeleton@next @skeletonlabs/skeleton-react@next
• Svelte: npm i -D @skeletonlabs/skeleton@next @skeletonlabs/skeleton-svelte@next

You can view documentation for each new component here:

https://next.skeleton.dev/

Skeleton Roadmap

I also wanted to give a brief update on the future of the project. Namely, we had originally announced that v4 would contain both component and theme updates. However, we are now planning to split this into two major releases. So the component overhaul will come in v4, while our planned theme updates will come in v5. Additionally, we plan to follow up the component and theme updates with the addition of Vue and Solid.js support. These will be staggered, with Vue arriving first.

We hope to formalize this roadmap soon, but at a very high level, here's what will likely entail the next 6-12 months for the project:

• v4: Component Overhaul - likely by end of year
• v5: Theme Format and Generator Updates
• Future: Support for Vue and Solid.js component libraries

Note that we have many other initiatives in mind, not all of which have been announced. But we'll gladly share details as we can. Expect these to arrive alongside or be sandwiched between the major initiatives listed above though.

Submitting Feedback

As always, if you have questions or feedback, please reach out in the comments below! Thanks!