shadcn/ui CLI Has a Free API: Here's How to Build Custom Component Libraries Programmatically

What is shadcn/ui CLI? shadcn/ui has become the most popular component library approach in the React ecosystem. Unlike traditional libraries, shadcn/ui gives you actual source code — copy-paste components you own and customize. But most developers don't know that shadcn/ui has a powerful CLI and registry API that lets you programmatically manage components, themes, and entire design systems. The Free Registry API shadcn/ui exposes a public registry at https://ui.shadcn.com/registry that returns component metadata, dependencies, and source code. Fetch Available Components curl -s https://ui.shadcn.com/registry/index.json | jq '.[0:5]' Response: [ { "name" : "accordion" , "dependencies" : [ "@radix-ui/react-accordion" ], "type" : "components:ui" }, { "name" : "alert" , "dependencies" : [], "type" : "components:ui" }, { "name" : "alert-dialog" , "dependencies" : [ "@radix-ui/react-alert-dialog" ], "type" : "components:ui" } ] Get Component Source Code curl -s https://ui.shadcn.com/registr