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formsRauno

Input Decorations Positioning

MUST

MUST: Absolutely position input prefix/suffix icons on top of the input and pad the input around them — do not place them as flex siblings. Clicking a decoration must focus the input.

Input prefix and suffix decorations should be absolutely positioned inside the input with padding, not next to it

<div className="relative">
  <SearchIcon className="pointer-events-none absolute left-3 top-1/2 -translate-y-1/2" />
  <input className="pl-9" />
</div>

Bad

Good

Why it matters

When decorative elements like search icons or currency symbols are placed next to an input in a flex layout, clicking them doesn't focus the input. Position them absolutely inside the input container so the entire area is clickable and the input receives focus.

References

Built by Gleb Stroganov, design engineer at Evil Martians.

The rules come from other people's skills and guidelines — Vercel, Rauno Freiberg, @Ibelick, impeccable, Emil Kowalski, Tailwind, RAMS — each one credited on the Sources page. The work here is extraction and wiring: every rule is pulled into one corpus, given a good and a bad example you can operate, a MUST/SHOULD/NEVER rule an agent can paste, and a link back to where it came from.