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Quick Tip: Inline Minified CSS

Originally posted on The Simplest Web Site That Could Possibly Work Well on zachleat.com

This tip works well on small sites that don’t have a lot of CSS. Inlining your CSS removes an external request from your critical path and speeds up page rendering times! If your CSS file is small enough, this is a simplification/end-around for Critical CSS approaches.

Installation

npm install clean-css to make the CSS minifier available in your project.

Configuration

Add the following cssmin filter to your Eleventy Config file:

eleventy.config.js
import CleanCSS from "clean-css";

export default function (eleventyConfig) {
	eleventyConfig.addFilter("cssmin", function (code) {
		return new CleanCSS({}).minify(code).styles;
	});
};
const CleanCSS = require("clean-css");

module.exports = function (eleventyConfig) {
	eleventyConfig.addFilter("cssmin", function (code) {
		return new CleanCSS({}).minify(code).styles;
	});
};

Create your CSS File

Add a sample CSS file to your _includes directory. Let’s call it sample.css.

body {
	font-family: fantasy;
}

Capture and Minify

Capture the CSS into a variable and run it through the filter (this sample is using Nunjucks syntax)

<!-- capture the CSS content as a Nunjucks variable -->
{% set css %} {% include "sample.css" %} {% endset %}
<!-- feed it through our cssmin filter to minify -->
<style>
	{{ css | cssmin | safe }}
</style>

Warning about Content Security Policy

WARNING:
If you are using a Content Security Policy on your website, make sure the style-src directive allows 'unsafe-inline'. Otherwise, your inline CSS will not load.

Or: use an 11ty.js Template

Contributed by Zach Green

You can also inline minified CSS in a JavaScript template. This technique does not use filters, and instead uses async functions:

eleventy.config.js
import fs from "node:fs/promises";
import path from "node:path";
import CleanCSS from "clean-css";

export default async function (data) {
	return `<style>
	  ${await fs
			.readFile(path.resolve(__dirname, "./sample.css"))
			.then((data) => new CleanCSS().minify(data).styles)}
	</style>`;
};
const fs = require("node:fs/promises");
const path = require("node:path");
const CleanCSS = require("clean-css");

module.exports = async function (data) {
	return `<style>
	  ${await fs
			.readFile(path.resolve(__dirname, "./sample.css"))
			.then((data) => new CleanCSS().minify(data).styles)}
	</style>`;
};