--- title: "Steps" description: "A procedure set out as numbered steps, each a ring with its number, an optional title and a body of your content, joined to the next by a hairline. An ordered list to read, never a control and never a record of progress." url: "https://tanrei.chnotchy.com/components/steps/" last_updated: 2026-10-23T21:17:12.000Z --- # Steps > A procedure set out as numbered steps, each a ring with its number, an optional title and a body of your content, joined to the next by a hairline. An ordered list to read, never a control and never a record of progress. ## Overview Three things look alike and are not the same: | Kind | What it is | Has states | Says | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | **An ordered list** (prose) | Items in an order, a phrase or a sentence each | No | “These, in this order” | | **Steps** | A procedure to read and carry out somewhere else | No | “Do this, then this” | | **A stepper** | Where a person is in a flow the product runs | Yes | “You are here” | Steps have no current, completed or failed step, and a marker is not a control. A checkout or a set-up wizard needs a stepper, which Tanrei does not have yet. ### Usage On the web the steps are a class on your own ordered list, not an element. The list is the document’s list before any script runs, a Markdown renderer’s `
    ` needs one class and no wrapper, and without the stylesheet it is the browser’s numbered list. SwiftUI, Compose, Flutter and React Native are planned: the names beside each platform at the top of this page are the ones the spec gives them, and nothing ships there yet. React has no `Steps` component yet either, so use the list with the class. **Web** ```html
    1. Save the file in the folder that holds the project's settings.
    2. Name the file in the settings.
    3. Run the build and commit what it writes.

    1. Implement

      Build the change on each platform the spec lists.

    2. Check

      Run every check in order.

      pnpm check
    ``` **React** ```tsx import '@tanrei/web/steps.css';

    1. Install

      Add the package to the project.

    ``` | Prop | On the web | | --- | --- | | `label` | `aria-label` (or `aria-labelledby` naming the heading before the list) | | `start` | the list’s own `start` | | `size: large` | `data-size="large"` | | a step | `
  1. ` | | a step’s `title` | the item’s first child with `class="tanrei-steps-title"` (a `

    `) | | the title slot | a heading (`h2` to `h6`) as the item’s first child | Write `role="list"` on the list: one browser engine drops the list semantics of a list whose markers are removed. ## Specs - **The marker** is a ring in the system’s hairline with the step’s number, 24 across at medium and 28 at large. One or two digits keep it a circle; a longer number widens it into a pill, and every step’s content still begins at one edge. - **The connector** runs from each ring to the next and stops short of both. The last step has none. - **The title** is optional. It is text of its step and not a heading, unless you give a heading as the item’s first child: then it is drawn as any title and keeps its role and level, so the step is in the page’s outline. - **The body** is your content. Two blocks are 8 apart, two steps 16. A block that is not text (a code block, a table, tabs, a callout) takes the body’s whole width. - **Sizes** are prose’s two: medium among controls, large on a page whose purpose is the text. Steps inside a prose are given that prose’s size. - **Colors**: the number, the title and the body take the content color of the surface the steps sit on. The ring and the connector are both drawn in the system’s one hairline color. Nothing has a fill. - Category: Containment - Level: base - Listing: default - Page: https://tanrei.chnotchy.com/components/steps/ - Spec: https://github.com/chnotchy/tanrei/blob/main/specs/steps.spec.json ### Availability | Design system | Has it | Notes | | --- | --- | --- | | Tanrei (`tanrei`) | Yes | — | | Cupertino (Apple HIG-inspired) (`cupertino`) | Yes | — | | M3 Expressive-like (Material 3 Expressive-inspired) (`m3-expressive-like`) | Yes | — | | M3-like (Material 3-inspired) (`m3-like`) | Yes | — | ### Platforms - Web: the class `tanrei-steps` on the product's own element, styled by `@tanrei/web/steps.css`. | Platform | Name | Status | | --- | --- | --- | | Web | `tanrei-steps` | lagging | | SwiftUI | `TanreiSteps` | planned | | Jetpack Compose | `TanreiSteps` | planned | | Flutter | `TanreiSteps` | planned | | React Native | `Steps` | planned | Names a platform gives in its own idiom: | Spec | Web | SwiftUI | Jetpack Compose | Flutter | React Native | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | `label` (prop) | `aria-label` | `label` | `label` | `semanticLabel` | `accessibilityLabel` | | `size` (prop) | `data-size` | `size` | `size` | `size` | `size` | Statuses: `planned` — In the inventory. Nothing shippable exists yet. `lagging` — An implementation of an earlier spec exists; it has not caught up with the current one. `alpha` — Implemented with tests. The API may still change. `beta` — Feature complete and at parity. Only fixes are expected. `stable` — Covered by semantic versioning. `deprecated` — Still shipped; scheduled for removal. ### Anatomy - `list`: The ordered list itself: one column of steps, as wide as its container gives it. It has no fill, no edge, no padding and no state of its own, and it brings no text color. - `step`: One item of the list: its marker at the start, and beside it its content — a title, where it has one, and a body. A step has no state: none is current, done or failed. - `marker`: What begins a step: a ring in the system's one hairline holding the step's number. At least as high and as wide as the marker's height of the size; a circle in the default system, widened into a pill by a number too long for one. The ring is decorative; the number is the step's number, exposed once with the list item. - `connector` (optional): The line from a step's marker to the next step's: the same hairline, on the marker column's centre line, kept a small distance from both rings. It shows that the steps are one sequence and where a step of several blocks ends. Decorative. The last step has none. - `title` (optional): A step's name, in a few words ("Install", "Say where each output goes"), set at the body's size in a heading weight. Text of its step and not a heading, unless the product gives a heading of its own as the title. - `body` (optional): A step's content: what the product puts in it. Text placed directly takes the body's text style; long-form blocks are set as prose; a block that is not text — a code block, a table, tabs — takes the body's whole width. ### Props | Prop | Type | Default | Description | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | `label` | `string` | `""` | The list's accessible name, in the product's language ("Installing the package"). Not drawn. Give one where no heading directly before the steps already says what the procedure is. | | `start` | `number` | `1` | The number of the first step; each following step's number is one more. For a procedure that a note, a heading or a choice between tabs interrupts and that continues in a second set of steps ("4, 5, 6"). A whole number. | | `size` | `enum`: `medium`, `large` | `"medium"` | The size of the steps' text, in prose's two sizes. Medium sets the body in the interface's own text style, for steps among controls: a panel, a dialog, a card. Large sets it in the style for long reading, for a page whose purpose is the text. Steps inside a prose are given that prose's size. A design system may add values. | ### Item: `step` One step of the procedure: an optional title and a body. Its number comes from its place in the list and from start, never from a prop of its own. Names: Web `li`, SwiftUI `TanreiStep`, Jetpack Compose `TanreiStep`, Flutter `TanreiStep`, React Native `Step`. | Prop | Type | Default | Description | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | `title` | `string` | `""` | The step's name, in a few words. Plain text: drawn first in the step, read with the step, and not a heading. A title that is a heading of the page is given in the title slot instead. | | Slot | Description | | --- | --- | | `title` | The title as content of the product's own: a heading of the level the page's outline needs (so the step is in the page's table of contents and can be linked to). Drawn in the title's text style whatever its level; its role and level are kept. Takes the place of the title prop. | ### States `enabled` ### Accessibility - Role: `list` - Labeling: An ordered list, named by label where the product gives one; where a heading directly before the steps says what the procedure is, no label is needed. Each step is a list item read as its number, its title and its body, in that order. The number is the list item's own and is read once; the ring and the connector are decorative and hidden. A title is text of its item, or the product's own heading where the product gave one. - Minimum target size: yes - Not interactive: the steps take no input and no focus (STP-11), so there is no target of their own to size and minimumTarget holds trivially. What is pressable inside a body — a link, a copy button, tabs — meets the minimum target by its own spec. - Order is carried by structure, not by the drawing: the steps are an ordered list whose items have numbers (STP-12), so a reader who does not see the rings and the connector loses nothing. That is also why forced colors and a missing stylesheet cost nothing but the look. - The number a person hears is the number a person sees (STP-12), also for a set that continues another with start. A platform whose list semantics would announce a position ("1 of 3") in place of the drawn number adds the number to the item's text instead of relying on the position. - Contrast is the surface's: the steps bring no text color (STP-2, STP-6, STP-7), so the number, the title and the body have the contrast of the content color of the surface they sit on, which the default system holds to 4.5:1. The ring and the connector are decorative — the number is read without the ring, and the order without the line — and are not held to 3:1, as the divider's line and a quote's line are not. - A title is not a heading by default, because a page whose outline lists every step of every procedure is harder to move through by headings. Where the steps are the page's sections (a long guide with one screen of content per step), give each title as a heading in the title slot; its level is the page's, and the steps do not change it (STP-6). - Steps say nothing about progress (STP-11, STP-12): no step is current, done or failed, and none can be. A flow in which the person is somewhere — a checkout, a set-up wizard — needs a component that exposes the current step, which this is not. - Text size, text spacing and reflow: STP-14. A long procedure is never cut, collapsed or paged by the component. ### Behaviour Requirements in EARS form, each with its stable id. - **STP-1** THE steps SHALL lay out its steps in one column, in the order they are given, each step a row of two parts: its marker, in a column at the steps' start edge, and its content — its title, where it has one, and its body — beside it. The marker column SHALL be as wide as the widest marker of the set and never narrower than the marker's height of the size (comp.steps.marker.height.medium for medium, comp.steps.marker.height.large for large), each marker centred in it; every step's content SHALL begin at one edge, comp.steps.marker.gap after that column, and run to the steps' end edge. THE steps SHALL separate the end of one step from the beginning of the next by comp.steps.step.gap, SHALL give the first step no space before it and the last step no space after it, and SHALL draw no fill, no edge around itself and no elevation. - **STP-2** THE steps SHALL draw each step's marker as a ring with the step's number at its centre: a box at least comp.steps.marker.height.medium high and wide for medium (comp.steps.marker.height.large for large), with corners comp.steps.marker.shape, never larger than half the box's height and eased by sys.shape.corner-smoothing, no fill, and an edge comp.steps.marker.outline.width wide in comp.steps.marker.outline.color drawn inside the box's size; the number SHALL be set on one line in comp.steps.marker.label.typescale.medium for medium (comp.steps.marker.label.typescale.large for large), in the content color of the surface the steps sit on, with at least comp.steps.marker.padding-inline between it and the ring at the start and at the end, so that a number too long for a circle widens its marker into a pill and is never cut. - **STP-3** THE steps SHALL place each marker at the top of its step with its centre on the centre of the step's first line of text — the title's first line where the step has a title, else the first line of the body; WHERE the marker is taller than that line THE steps SHALL lower the step's content by half the difference, so that the marker's top is the step's top and no marker reaches into the space above its step; WHERE a step begins with a block that is not text (a code block, a table, a picture) THE steps SHALL place the marker's top on that block's top. - **STP-4** THE steps SHALL number its steps in order: the first step's number is start and each following step's is one more than the one before it. THE number SHALL be written as a whole number in the digits 0 to 9, with no period, bracket or other mark beside it and no word before it. WHEN a step is added, removed or moved, or start changes, THE steps SHALL draw every step's new number at once, without a motion. - **STP-5** WHILE a step is followed by another step THE steps SHALL draw a connector between their two markers: a straight line comp.steps.connector.thickness thick in comp.steps.connector.color, on the centre line of the marker column, from comp.steps.connector.gap below the upper marker's bottom edge to comp.steps.connector.gap above the lower marker's top edge, through the space between the two steps, however tall the upper step's content is. THE steps SHALL draw no connector after the last step and none for a set of one step; a connector SHALL take no room in the layout, SHALL never be drawn over a marker or over a step's content, and SHALL be kept from assistive technology. - **STP-6** WHERE a step has a title THE steps SHALL draw it first in the step's content, in comp.steps.title.typescale.medium for medium (comp.steps.title.typescale.large for large) and the content color of the surface the steps sit on, SHALL wrap it and never cut it, and SHALL begin the step's body comp.steps.title.gap below it. A title given as text SHALL be exposed as text of its step and SHALL NOT be a heading; WHERE the product gives the title as content of its own in the step's title slot — a heading of the level its page's outline needs — THE steps SHALL draw it as any title, in the same text style whatever its level, and SHALL change neither its role nor its level. A step with a title and no body SHALL be drawn as its marker and its title alone. THE steps SHALL set the title's letter-spacing by the script of its text, as every title is set (PRS-20): no negative letter-spacing WHERE its language is Chinese, Japanese or Korean, and none WHERE its script joins its letters or stacks marks on them. - **STP-7** THE steps SHALL draw the content a step is given as that step's body and SHALL give it comp.steps.body.typescale.medium for medium (comp.steps.body.typescale.large for large) as the text style its text takes where nothing inside sets another. THE steps SHALL give the body no color of its own: its text takes the content color of the surface the steps sit on, so the same steps read on a page, in a card and in a callout. The body SHALL wrap and SHALL never be cut or limited to a number of lines. WHERE the body holds more than one block THE steps SHALL separate two blocks that follow each other by comp.steps.body.gap, whatever they are, and SHALL give the first block no space before it and the last block no space after it; the body's long-form blocks — paragraphs, lists, a quote — SHALL otherwise be set as prose of the steps' size sets them (PRS-1 to PRS-3, PRS-19), a link in them SHALL be underlined at rest (PRS-17), and THE steps SHALL add no style to anything inside a component placed in a body. - **STP-8** THE steps SHALL give every block of a body that is not text — a code block, a table, a set of tabs, a callout, a figure or a picture, any component — the whole inline size of the body, from the edge every step's content begins at (STP-1) to the steps' end edge, and such a block SHALL scroll inside its own box when its content cannot shrink (PRS-15). WHILE the steps sit in a prose that keeps a measure THE steps themselves SHALL take that prose's full width as a block that is not text (PRS-18), and the text blocks of a body SHALL be kept no wider than comp.prose.measure times their font size, from the body's start edge; WHERE the steps sit outside a prose, or in one without a measure, every block of a body SHALL take the body's full inline size. - **STP-9** WHERE a step's body holds a list THE steps SHALL leave it a list of prose, nested one depth below the steps: an ordered list is marked with lowercase letters and an unordered one with a ring (PRS-9's second depth), set in by prose's own inset from the body's start edge, so that sub-steps never repeat the steps' numbers and never draw markers or connectors of their own. WHERE the product places a set of steps inside a step's body THE steps SHALL draw it as a set of its own, numbered from its own start and laid out in the body's width, and in debug builds SHALL report that steps are nested. - **STP-10** THE steps SHALL lay itself out as a block in the flow of its container: it SHALL take the whole inline size the container gives it, with its start edge on the start edge of the text around it; it SHALL bring no outer space of its own (PRS-15: the space between it and its neighbours is its container's), SHALL never be wider than its container, SHALL have no minimum width and no maximum width, and SHALL NOT scroll. - **STP-11** THE steps SHALL NOT take pointer, touch or keyboard input, SHALL NOT take focus or be a stop in the focus order, and SHALL NOT change anything they draw under a pointer, a press or focus: a step has no current, completed, error, hovered, focused, pressed, selected or disabled state, a marker is not a control, and the steps emit no event. What the product places in a body — a link, a code block's copy button, tabs — takes input by its own spec, and text in a title and a body SHALL remain selectable where the platform lets text be selected. - **STP-12** THE steps SHALL be exposed to assistive technology as an ordered list of as many items as it has steps, named by label where label is not empty, and each step as one item of that list holding, in this order, its number, its title and its body. Each step's number SHALL be exposed exactly once, as the item's number, and SHALL be the number the marker draws (STP-4), also where start is not 1; the ring and the connector SHALL be kept from assistive technology. THE steps SHALL NOT expose a step as current, done or failed, and SHALL add no role to a title or to anything in a body. - **STP-13** WHEN label, a step's title or a step's body changes THE steps SHALL draw and expose the new value at once, without a motion, and SHALL NOT announce the change by itself. - **STP-14** WHILE the text size is enlarged THE steps SHALL grow each number, title and body with it and grow each marker with its number, keeping the marker's height of the size as a minimum; THE steps SHALL keep comp.steps.marker.gap, comp.steps.step.gap, comp.steps.title.gap, comp.steps.body.gap and comp.steps.connector.gap as they are, wrap, set no fixed height on a step, lose no content when the reader raises line height, paragraph spacing, letter spacing or word spacing, and SHALL need no horizontal scrolling at a width of 320 points with text at 200 %, except inside a block that scrolls in its own box (STP-8). - **STP-15** WHERE the platform draws with a person's own forced colors (the web's forced-colors mode, and a platform's equivalent where it has one) THE steps SHALL draw each ring and each connector in the platform's text color at their own widths, and each number, title and body in that text color; nothing the steps draw relies on a fill. - **STP-16** WHERE the layout direction is right-to-left THE steps SHALL mirror its two parts and apply its spaces by logical start and end, so that the marker column and the connectors are at the right and each step's content is at its left, beginning at one edge and running to the steps' left edge; a body's blocks that are not text SHALL still take the body's whole inline size (STP-8). - **STP-17** THE steps SHALL take its layout direction from where it is used — the direction of the nearest ancestor that sets one, and the platform's own where none does — and SHALL have no direction setting of its own; WHEN that direction changes while the steps are shown THE steps SHALL draw themselves for the new direction at once, without a motion of their own, keeping what they show. - **STP-18** THE steps SHALL draw a step's number as a left-to-right run whose digits are never reversed, in every layout direction, and SHALL lay out a title given as text as text of its own direction, isolated from the text around it: it takes the base direction of its first strong character, or the layout direction where it has none, so that a command, a file's name and a version keep their own order in a right-to-left layout and reorder nothing beside them; THE steps SHALL still place the title and align its lines by the layout direction, not by the text's own. The body's blocks are laid out as prose lays out a block (PRS-25): each by its own first strong character unless the content states a direction, with its lines aligned to the start edge of the layout. - **STP-19** WHEN size names a value that the active design system does not have THE steps SHALL render with the default size's tokens, and in debug builds report the unknown value. IF start is not a whole number THE steps SHALL number from 1 and in debug builds report it; a start of zero or below is a whole number and is drawn as it is. - **STP-20** IF the steps hold no step THE steps SHALL draw nothing, take no space and expose nothing, and in debug builds report that a set of steps is empty. IF a step has neither a title nor a body THE steps SHALL still draw its marker, count it in the numbering and in the list's items, and in debug builds report that a step is empty: a number is never skipped, so the numbers a reader sees are the numbers the content has. ### Tokens As written in the token documents (DTCG): an alias in braces names the token it takes its value from, which each design system resolves. On the web each token is a CSS custom property: `--tanrei` and the name after `tanrei`, joined by hyphens (`tanrei.comp.steps.…` → `--tanrei-comp-steps-…`). #### `tanrei.comp.steps` | Token | Type | Value | | --- | --- | --- | | `comp.steps.marker.height.medium` | `dimension` | `24px` | | `comp.steps.marker.height.large` | `dimension` | `28px` | | `comp.steps.marker.padding-inline` | `dimension` | `{tanrei.sys.space.space50}` | | `comp.steps.marker.shape` | `dimension` | `{tanrei.sys.shape.corner.full}` | | `comp.steps.marker.outline.color` | `color` | `{tanrei.sys.color.outline-variant}` | | `comp.steps.marker.outline.width` | `dimension` | `{tanrei.sys.border.hairline}` | | `comp.steps.marker.label.typescale.medium` | `typography` | `{tanrei.sys.typescale.label-small}` | | `comp.steps.marker.label.typescale.large` | `typography` | `{tanrei.sys.typescale.label}` | | `comp.steps.marker.gap` | `dimension` | `{tanrei.sys.space.space150}` | | `comp.steps.connector.color` | `color` | `{tanrei.sys.color.outline-variant}` | | `comp.steps.connector.thickness` | `dimension` | `{tanrei.sys.border.hairline}` | | `comp.steps.connector.gap` | `dimension` | `{tanrei.sys.space.space50}` | | `comp.steps.step.gap` | `dimension` | `{tanrei.sys.space.space200}` | | `comp.steps.title.typescale.medium` | `typography` | `{tanrei.sys.typescale.heading-6}` | | `comp.steps.title.typescale.large` | `typography` | `{tanrei.sys.typescale.heading-5}` | | `comp.steps.title.gap` | `dimension` | `{tanrei.sys.space.space50}` | | `comp.steps.body.typescale.medium` | `typography` | `{tanrei.sys.typescale.body}` | | `comp.steps.body.typescale.large` | `typography` | `{tanrei.sys.typescale.body-large}` | | `comp.steps.body.gap` | `dimension` | `{tanrei.sys.space.space100}` | ### In prose Inside `.tanrei-prose` the steps are not an island: the paragraphs, lists, links and inline code of each step are still the prose’s. The steps take the prose’s full width, so a code block in a step takes the column, and the paragraphs inside a step still stop at the measure. A list inside a step is marked with letters (an ordered one) or rings (an unordered one), so sub-steps never repeat the steps’ numbers. `@tanrei/web/prose.css` carries the steps’ rules, so a page of prose needs no second stylesheet. ### What the web draws differently - With a title, write the body in elements (`

    `): text written directly after a title cannot be given the gap under it. - In a prose that keeps a measure, a step that is text alone is kept to the measure. Text written directly in a step that also holds blocks is not: write it in a `

    `. - A step that begins with a code block or a picture has its marker’s top on that block’s top. Text written directly before such a block (a tight Markdown item) is not seen by the stylesheet: write it in a `

    `. - A number of three digits or more widens its marker into a pill. The marker column of the whole set follows only with the package’s script, which measures it; without the script such a marker reaches into the gap beside it. - Without the package’s script a change of `start` at run time is not redrawn in two browser engines. ## Guidelines ### Do - Say what the procedure is in a heading or a sentence before it. Where nothing does, give the list a `label`. - Keep a step to one action and what the reader needs to carry it out. - Use `start` to continue a procedure that a note or a choice between tabs interrupts. - Use an ordered list of prose, without the class, for items that are a phrase each and not a procedure. ### Don’t - Don’t use steps to show progress through a flow. No step is current or done. - Don’t nest steps in steps. Sub-steps are an ordered list in the body. - Don’t make every title a heading: a page whose outline lists every step of every procedure is harder to move through. ## Accessibility ### What the component handles - It stays the document’s ordered list: a list of as many items as steps, each read as its number, its title and its body. - The number a person hears is the number a person sees, also for a set that continues another with `start`. - The ring and the connector are decorative and hidden. Order is carried by the list, so nothing is lost in forced colors or without the stylesheet. - Text grows with the reader’s settings and wraps. Only a block that scrolls in its own box, such as a code block, scrolls sideways. ### What you need to do - Write `role="list"` on the list. - Name the procedure with a heading before it, or with `aria-label`. - Give a title as a heading only where the steps are sections of the page.