CSS

What it is: change Velt’s look: colors, spacing, fonts, radius, shadows: without touching its structure or behavior. The lowest-effort, most upgrade-safe layer.

Try the Theme Playground to visually customize and preview your theme, then copy the generated CSS variables.

Use it when: your design is Velt’s default UI in different colors/spacing/typography. (Decision tree Q1.) Don’t use it when: you need to reorder, add, remove, or relayout parts. Use wireframes for that. And don’t use display:none to hide features; toggle them with a prop on the primitive instead.

The model

Velt exposes a large set of CSS custom properties (variables), all prefixed --velt-…. You override them in your own stylesheet. Velt reads them at render time, so your values flow through its whole UI: including (for variables) inside the shadow DOM. There are two families:

Modern tokens: --velt-light-mode-*, --velt-dark-mode-*, --velt-spacing-*, --velt-border-radius-*, --velt-font-size-*, plus z-index tokens. Use these.
Legacy tokens: --legacy-velt-* (older components still read some of these). Only touch them if a specific older surface needs it.

Full list: CSS variables.

Steps

Step 1: Make sure your selector CSS can reach Velt

CSS variables cross the shadow boundary (so Step 2 variable theming works no matter what), but class/element selectors do not reach inside a shadow DOM. If you’ll use any selector-based CSS (Step 5) or styled wireframes, pick one of these two supported approaches: Option A: turn shadow DOM off (simplest; your normal stylesheet then reaches the elements):

<VeltComments shadowDom={false} />
<VeltCommentsSidebar shadowDom={false} />

Option B: keep shadow DOM on, and inject your CSS into the shadow root with the client’s injectCustomCss API. Use this when you want to keep Velt’s style isolation (so Velt’s CSS can’t leak into your app and vice-versa) but still style inside it:

const { client } = useVeltClient();
client.injectCustomCss({ type: "styles", value: `
  .velt-comment-dialog-composer { border-radius: 10px !important; }
` });
// or load an external stylesheet into the shadow root:
client.injectCustomCss({ type: "link", value: "https://yourcdn.com/velt-overrides.css" });

injectCustomCss pushes your CSS into Velt’s shadow root, so selectors match there. type: "styles" = a raw CSS string; type: "link" = a stylesheet URL. Pick A or B per project: don’t do both for the same surface. (See Setup.)

Shadow DOM & wireframes (root vs nested)

Verified in-browser. When you customize with wireframes, whether you still need shadowDom={false} depends on which wireframe you registered:

You registered the component’s ROOT wireframe (e.g. VeltCommentDialogWireframe / velt-comment-dialog-wireframe): Velt auto-removes that component’s own shadow DOM, so it renders in light DOM and your normal class CSS reaches it: no shadowDom={false} needed for that component.
You registered only a NESTED / leaf wireframe (e.g. just the ThreadCard, with no root dialog wireframe): shadow DOM is NOT auto-removed. Your layout markup applies, but class CSS won’t reach inside, so the look may change without your styles landing. For this case you must set shadowDom={false} (or the per-surface flag / injectCustomCss) explicitly.
Either way, inline style="" on your wireframe markup always works (it survives the clone and lives in whatever DOM the slot renders into).
Nesting caveat: a root-wireframed component that renders inside another shadow-DOM component (e.g. the dialog shown inside the sidebar with the sidebar’s default shadow on) still sits in that outer component’s shadow root: turn the outer component’s shadow off too if you need class CSS there.

Rule of thumb: root wireframe → class CSS works (shadow auto-off); leaf-only wireframe → set shadowDom={false} yourself; inline styles always work.

Step 2: Override variables at `:root`

Put all Velt CSS in one stylesheet. Override the tokens you care about:

/* velt.css: loaded once */
:root {
  /* Brand accent used across comment UI (buttons, active states, links) */
  --velt-light-mode-accent: #FF6B35;
  --velt-light-mode-accent-hover: #E55A29;

  /* Surfaces & text */
  --velt-light-mode-background-0: #FFFFFF;   /* primary surface */
  --velt-light-mode-text-0: #0A0A0A;         /* primary text */

  /* Shape & rhythm */
  --velt-border-radius-md: 10px;
  --velt-spacing-md: 14px;
  --velt-font-size-sm: 13px;          /* overriding the 14px default */
}

These names are real and exhaustive: see CSS variables. Never invent a token name.

Step 3: Support dark mode

Velt switches modes via the data-velt-theme="dark" attribute on the document root. Override the dark tokens under that selector:

:root[data-velt-theme="dark"] {
  --velt-dark-mode-accent: #FF8A5C;
  --velt-dark-mode-background-0: #0F0F0F;
  --velt-dark-mode-text-0: #FFFFFF;
}

You supply the dark values; Velt sets the data-velt-theme="dark" attribute when dark mode is on. To toggle dark mode, use any of:

the darkMode prop on a component: <VeltComments darkMode={isDark} /> (also dialogDarkMode, pinDarkMode, … for finer control);
the client API: const { client } = useVeltClient(); client.setDarkMode(true) (app-wide);
follow the OS preference: wire your own prefers-color-scheme media query to setDarkMode.

So: you decide when dark mode is on (prop / setDarkMode / OS), and you supply the dark token values under [data-velt-theme="dark"].

Step 4: Change the default font

Velt reads one global font token, --velt-default-font-family (default sans-serif). Override it at :root and every Velt surface picks it up: no per-component work:

:root {
  --velt-default-font-family: "Inter", "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif;
}

(There are no global line-height or font-weight tokens: those are per-component. The --velt-font-size-* scale can be overridden the same way.)

Step 5: Override specific elements by class (always with `!important`)

For anything variables don’t cover, target Velt’s classes directly. Velt injects its own styles at runtime with high specificity, so your overrides must use !important to win. Treat this as the rule for class-based Velt CSS, not a hack. The workflow (do this for any element you want to restyle):

Run the app with shadowDom={false} and inspect the element in DevTools.
Read the classes on it: Velt applies dual names: a short legacy class (e.g. selected) and a BEM velt-* class (e.g. velt-comment-dialog--selected). Prefer the velt-* class.
Write a rule for that class, ending each declaration with !important:

/* identified by inspecting the composer's send button */
.velt-composer--submit-button {
  background: #3d5afe !important;
  border-radius: 6px !important;
  color: #fff !important;
}

See CSS classes for the catalog of structural and stateful classes (unread, resolved, selected, has-reactions, hover, filter-applied, and more) you can target. Class names are an implementation detail and can shift between versions, so prefer --velt-* variables where one exists. Use !important class overrides for the rest, and re-check them on upgrade.

Step 6 (optional): Start from a blank slate with unstyled mode

If you’re restyling most of the UI anyway, remove Velt’s visual styling entirely with setUnstyledMode() (v6.0.0-beta.10+) and bring your own CSS. Layout and positioning styles are kept by default so components stay functional.

React / Next.js
Other Frameworks

const { client } = useVeltClient();

// Remove Velt's visual styling; keep layout/positioning (default)
client.setUnstyledMode(true);

// Strip everything down to raw browser defaults
client.setUnstyledMode(true, { keepFunctionalStyles: false });

// Restore all Velt styling
client.setUnstyledMode(false);

Velt.setUnstyledMode(true);
Velt.setUnstyledMode(true, { keepFunctionalStyles: false });
Velt.setUnstyledMode(false);

It applies to Velt styles in the page head and inside shadow roots, including styles injected later, and is reversible at any time.

What it can and can’t do

✅ CSS can	❌ CSS cannot
Recolor everything (light + dark)	Reorder or restructure the UI
Change spacing, radius, fonts, shadows	Add/remove UI parts (use a prop or wireframe)
Theme to match a brand	Insert your own markup between Velt’s pieces
Adjust z-index layering	Change behavior

If you’re writing display:none to remove parts, or wishing you could move a button, you’ve hit CSS’s ceiling: escalate to wireframes (restructure) or primitives (toggle features / compose).

Checklist

shadowDom={false} on customized components.
All Velt CSS in one stylesheet.
Only --velt-* / --legacy-velt-* names that exist in CSS variables.
Dark values under :root[data-velt-theme="dark"].
No display:none hacks to remove features (toggle with a prop instead).

Concepts

AI Agent Workflow

Approaches

Feature Guides

Components: Async Collaboration

Components: Realtime Collaboration

Guidance

Reference

The model

Steps

Step 1: Make sure your selector CSS can reach Velt

Shadow DOM & wireframes (root vs nested)

Step 2: Override variables at `:root`

Step 3: Support dark mode

Step 4: Change the default font

Step 5: Override specific elements by class (always with `!important`)

Step 6 (optional): Start from a blank slate with unstyled mode

What it can and can’t do

Checklist

​The model

​Steps

​Step 1: Make sure your selector CSS can reach Velt

​Shadow DOM & wireframes (root vs nested)

​Step 2: Override variables at :root

​Step 3: Support dark mode

​Step 4: Change the default font

​Step 5: Override specific elements by class (always with !important)

​Step 6 (optional): Start from a blank slate with unstyled mode

​What it can and can’t do

​Checklist

The model

Steps

Step 1: Make sure your selector CSS can reach Velt

Shadow DOM & wireframes (root vs nested)

Step 2: Override variables at `:root`

Step 3: Support dark mode

Step 4: Change the default font

Step 5: Override specific elements by class (always with `!important`)

Step 6 (optional): Start from a blank slate with unstyled mode

What it can and can’t do

Checklist