Introduction
Prompt Area is a production-grade React textarea built for AI chat interfaces. It brings @mentions, /commands, #tags, inline markdown, and file attachments together in a single contentEditable component — with zero extra dependencies.
Why Prompt Area
Most textarea components handle plain text. The moment you need structured input — mentions, slash commands, tags — you end up stitching together several libraries or building on a heavy editor framework like ProseMirror or Slate. Prompt Area gives you all of it in one package, designed specifically for prompt and chat composers rather than document editing.
- Trigger-based chips: @mentions, /commands, #tags, and custom callbacks
- Inline markdown, file & image attachments, and undo/redo
- Structured segment output — read typed chips, not a parsed string
- Companion components: Action Bar, Status Bar, Compact, and Chat Prompt Layout
- Zero extra dependencies — distributed through the shadcn registry
How it’s distributed
Prompt Area is a shadcn registry component, not an npm package. You install the source directly into your project, so you own and can customize every line. It needs only React and your existing Tailwind/shadcn setup.
When to use something else
Prompt Area is purpose-built for chat and prompt inputs. If you need full document editing — blocks, tables, columns, or real-time collaboration — a framework like Tiptap, Lexical, or Plate.js is the better fit. See the comparison pages for an honest breakdown.