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Tailwindcss not properly initializing when building NextJS project - Missing tailwind.config.ts

I'm using Node v20.18.3, and npm 11.2.0 When running yarn create next-app sample-app, and opting 'yes' to include Typescript and Tailwindcss, the resulting project is missing the 'tailwind.config.ts' file.

Here's the project layout - tailwindcss is very clearly included as a dependency, but tailwind.config.ts is missing. Adding it manually does not work.

I've tried rebuilding various other projects with the same settings, but that only ever results in "npm error could not determine executable to run". It provides logs for this error, which read as follows:

0 verbose cli /Users/admin/.nvm/versions/node/v20.18.3/bin/node /Users/admin/.nvm/versions/node/v20.18.3/lib/node_modules/npm/bin/npm-cli.js 1 info using npm@11.2.0 2 info using node@v20.18.3 3 silly config load:file:/Users/admin/.nvm/versions/node/v20.18.3/lib/node_modules/npm/npmrc 4 silly config load:file:/Users/admin/Documents/KRUX Design/03Projects/kx00/.npmrc 5 silly config load:file:/Users/admin/.npmrc 6 silly config load:file:/Users/admin/.nvm/versions/node/v20.18.3/etc/npmrc 7 verbose title npm exec tailwindcss init -p 8 verbose argv "exec" "--" "tailwindcss" "init" "-p" 9 verbose logfile logs-max:10 dir:/Users/admin/.npm/_logs/2025-03-06T23_50_20_272Z- 10 verbose logfile /Users/admin/.npm/_logs/2025-03-06T23_50_20_272Z-debug-0.log 11 silly logfile start cleaning logs, removing 1 files 12 silly logfile done cleaning log files 13 silly packumentCache heap:4345298944 maxSize:1086324736 maxEntrySize:543162368 14 verbose stack Error: could not determine executable to run 14 verbose stack at getBinFromManifest (/Users/admin/.nvm/versions/node/v20.18.3/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/libnpmexec/lib/get-bin-from-manifest.js:17:23) 14 verbose stack at exec (/Users/admin/.nvm/versions/node/v20.18.3/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/libnpmexec/lib/index.js:205:15) 14 verbose stack at async Npm.exec (/Users/admin/.nvm/versions/node/v20.18.3/lib/node_modules/npm/lib/npm.js:208:9) 14 verbose stack at async module.exports (/Users/admin/.nvm/versions/node/v20.18.3/lib/node_modules/npm/lib/cli/entry.js:67:5) 15 verbose pkgid tailwindcss@4.0.11 16 error could not determine executable to run 17 verbose cwd /Users/admin/Documents/KRUX Design/03Projects/kx00 18 verbose os Darwin 24.3.0 19 verbose node v20.18.3 20 verbose npm v11.2.0 21 verbose exit 1 22 verbose code 1 23 error A complete log of this run can be found in: /Users/admin/.npm/_logs/2025-03-06T23_50_20_272Z-debug-0.log

Any thoughts or ideas would be greatly appreciated.

I've tried rebuilding various other projects with the same settings, using npm instead of yarn, I've tried building it without Tailwind and adding Tailwind later via npx tailwindcss init -p, I've performed a factory reset on this device with the intent to reinstall everything fresh, thinking my configs must be messed up after years of tinkering. However, even a fresh machine with completely new settings is yielding the same results. I've had ChatGPT walk me through several steps to manually install Tailwindcss binaries and still to no avail.

Solution

  • That's because you're setting up an application with the latest version of Tailwind.

    Tailwind v4 follows a CSS-first configuration!