iconmate

Add SVG icons to your JS apps without icon libraries.

Quick Start · Install · Presets · CLI Commands · AI Ready · Configuration

Built from my blog post on Why you might not need an icon library, iconmate is a Rust-powered CLI for developers who want the speed and control of plain files without icon-package bloat.

Use icones.js.org, a direct SVG URL, or raw SVG markup. iconmate drops the icon straight into your project and keeps your exports tidy.

Why iconmate?

• Made with Rust🦀: Fast TUI that you can use on any IDE (powered by ratatui, nucleo).
• AI-ready automation 🤖: Let your coding agents get icons and add it to your project! A CLI is basically an MCP, just let AI use iconmate --help and it should be able to get everything running!
• Zero dependencies 📦: No icon library runtime added to your app
• Framework-native output 🧩: Generate files for React, Vue, Svelte, Solid, or plain SVG
• Interactive by default 🎮: Run iconmate and have a pleasant interactive TUI
• Multiple sources 🌐: Pull icons from Iconify names, URLs, or even raw SVG (which means it works with your private icon packs i.e. Anron)
• Fast workflow ⚡: Generate file + export line in one step
• Prototype-friendly 🏗️: Create empty SVG placeholders when needed

Quick Start

# Install
npm install -g iconmate

# Run the TUI in your project 🚀
iconmate

✨ That's it. The interactive TUI guides you through adding icons to your project.

// 👇 Then, you can just easily use any icon on your project like this!

import { IconHeart } from "@/assets/icons";

function MyApp() {
  return <IconHeart />;
}

Configuration

You can also add sensible defaults by passing flags as configs:

iconmate --folder src/components/Icons/ --folder src/components/icons
iconmate --folder src/components/Icons/ --icon heroicons:heart --name Heart

Iconmate now includes config schemas + TS type definitions in the repo:

• Local config schema (repo): iconmatelocal.schema.json
• Global config schema (repo): iconmateglobal.schema.json
• Local config schema (raw): https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Blankeos/iconmate/main/iconmatelocal.schema.json
• Global config schema (raw): https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Blankeos/iconmate/main/iconmateglobal.schema.json
• Schema source: config-gen/src/schema.ts
• TS type definitions: config-gen/src/types.ts

Regenerate schemas from project root:

just config-schema

just config-schema installs config-gen deps and generates both schema files.

Local Config (iconmate.config.json)

{
  "$schema": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Blankeos/iconmate/main/iconmatelocal.schema.json",
  "folder": "src/assets/icons",
  "preset": "normal",
  "output_line_template": "export { default as Icon%name% } from './%icon%%ext%';",
  "svg_view_cmd": "zed %filename%"
}

Use the raw URL for $schema so editors can fetch JSON directly.

Local config keys:

• folder (default: src/assets/icons)
• preset (default: normal, meaning plain .svg mode)
• output_line_template (default: export { default as Icon%name% } from './%icon%%ext%';)
• svg_view_cmd (supports %filename% token)

Allowed preset values:

• normal (plain SVG mode)
• react
• svelte
• solid
• vue
• emptysvg

Global Config (user-level)

Global config is for user-wide defaults and currently documents svg_view_cmd.

Suggested paths:

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/iconmate/config.json
• Linux: ~/.config/iconmate/config.json
• Windows: %APPDATA%\\iconmate\\config.json

Example global config:

{
  "$schema": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Blankeos/iconmate/main/iconmatelocal.schema.json",
  "svg_view_cmd": "code %filename%"
}

[!NOTE] This release adds config schemas and generated docs/types. Runtime loading/precedence wiring in the CLI/TUI is tracked in folder-system-plan.md.

Installation

NPM 🦖

# Install globally with either:
npm install -g iconmate
pnpm add -g iconmate
bun add -g iconmate
# Use without installing with either:
npx iconmate
pnpm dlx iconmate
bunx iconmate

Install from Cargo 🦀

cargo install iconmate

# Or clone and install from source:
git clone https://github.com/blankeos/iconmate.git
cd iconmate
cargo install --path .

Framework Presets

Determines the output filetype and the contents inside that file type.

[!IMPORTANT] If you want to use .svg file types, make sure to setup svgr for your js apps. I covered how to do this in:

• SolidJS (Vite)
• React (Vite)
• React (NextJS)
• Vue - contribution welcome!
• Svelte - couldn't find an svgr integration. Just use the svg preset.

Command Line

Interactive TUI Mode (Recommended)

iconmate

This section is helpful for AI:

Add Specific Icon

iconmate add --folder src/assets/icons --icon heroicons:heart --name Heart

With URL

iconmate add --folder src/assets/icons --icon https://api.iconify.design/mdi:heart.svg --name Heart

Raw SVG Content

iconmate add --folder src/assets/icons --icon '<svg>...</svg>' --name Heart

You can also pull raw SVG directly from the Iconify API:

iconmate add --folder src/assets/icons --icon "$(curl -fsSL https://api.iconify.design/mdi:heart.svg)" --name Heart

Custom Export Template

iconmate add --folder src/assets/icons --icon heroicons:heart --name Heart --output-line-template "export { ReactComponent as Icon%name% } from './%icon%.svg?react';"

Delete icons

iconmate delete --folder src/assets/icons

Iconify API Commands

# Search by keyword (text: one prefix:icon per line)
iconmate iconify search heart

# Search with pagination and JSON output
iconmate iconify search heart --limit 20 --start 0 --format json

# Include collection metadata in JSON search output
iconmate iconify search heart --format json --include-collections

# List all available collections
iconmate iconify collections

# List icons from one collection prefix
iconmate iconify collection mdi

# Get one icon as raw SVG (default)
iconmate iconify get mdi:heart

# Get one icon as raw Iconify JSON
iconmate iconify get mdi:heart --format json

iconmate iconify get <prefix:icon> --format json uses Iconify's JSON endpoint format, for example https://api.iconify.design/mdi.json?icons=heart.

AI-Ready Workflows

iconmate is designed to be easy for AI agents and scripts to drive end-to-end.

# 1) Search in machine-readable JSON
iconmate iconify search heart --format json --limit 20 --include-collections

# 2) Add an icon non-interactively from prefix:name
iconmate add --folder src/assets/icons --icon mdi:heart --name Heart

# 3) Or fetch raw SVG from Iconify API and add directly
iconmate add --folder src/assets/icons --icon "$(curl -fsSL https://api.iconify.design/mdi:heart.svg)" --name Heart

This means an AI can search, choose, and add icons without opening a browser.

Package.json Scripts

Best practice: Add sensible defaults to your script runner.

"scripts": {
  // Usage: npm run iconmate (usually this is the only command you need)!
  "iconmate": "iconmate --folder src/assets/icons/"
}

Supported Platforms

• macOS (Intel & Apple Silicon) 🍎
• Linux (x64 & ARM64) 🐧
• Windows (x64) 🪟

How It Works

1. Find your icon: Use https://icones.js.org or iconmate iconify search <query>.
2. Pick the icon id: For example heroicons:heart.
3. Add with iconmate: Interactive (iconmate) or direct (iconmate add ...).

Why this structure?

1. Copy-paste workflow: Find icon on icones.js.org → copy name → paste into iconmate
2. Organized by default: Everything goes into index.ts exports automatically and just typing <Icon will autosuggest from your current collection. Just regular TS behavior.
3. TypeScript ready: Generated code is fully typed. Pass custom width, height, fills, you name it.
4. Customizable 🎨: Want to add a default Tailwind class on every icon? custom props? Just add it to the file!
5. Git-friendly: Plain SVG files, no binary assets
6. Lightning fast: Native Rust binary, no Node.js startup time

Contributing

Contributions are welcome—pull requests for bug fixes, new framework presets, or improvements are appreciated.

🐱 Repo: github.com/Blankeos/iconmate - Star it if you love it ⭐

What's Completed from the Roadmap

• ✅ Interactive prompt mode
• ✅ Framework presets (React, Vue, Svelte, Solid)
• ✅ URL and raw SVG support
• ✅ Custom export templates
• ✅ Zero-config installation

Roadmap & Out-of-scoped

• An empty command. Creates an .svg, adds it to the index.ts with a name you can specify.
• Paste an actual svg instead of an icon name.
• Presets (normal, react, solid, svelte, vue, emptysvg) override output templates and file types.
• Prompt Mode via iconmate - Interactive mode so you won't need to pass arguments.
• Delete an icon using iconmate delete
• An interactive TUI instead of prompt-mode.
  • Rename in the TUI (but recommended for you to just use the LSP to do it)
  • A lot of TUI functionalities wokr
• iconmate iconify --help commands for AI to easily look for icons itself.
• Search and add Iconify icons directly inside the TUI (no need to open https://icones.js.org).
• Other frameworks i.e. --preset=flutter or Go/Rust GUI apps? (Not sure how they work yet though).
• Zed or VSCode Extension (seems unnecessary now, it's just a CLI)

Near-Term Roadmap

Made with Rust 🦀 | Based on my blog post