Gradio 6 has quietly released some very powerful features. gr.HTML now supports custom templates, scoped CSS, and JavaScript interactivity. This means you can build almost any web component, and Claude (or any other Frontier LLM) can generate frontend, backend, and state management all in one shot in one Python file.
We tested this by building different types of apps. Each is a single Python file with no build steps and can be deployed to Hugging Face Spaces in seconds.
productivity apps
Pomodoro Timer: A focus timer that grows your pixel art tree while you work. It starts as a seed, branches sprout, and leaves grow. Once you complete the session, the tree will join your forest. Session tracking, theme switching, break mode – all interactive and all in one file.
Using just tree animations usually requires a separate React component. All we need to do here is the CSS keyframe in css_template and the state update in js_on_load.
business app
GitHub contribution heatmap: Click any cell to toggle contributions. Multiple color themes. Pattern generator (streak, seasonal, random). Live statistics that update as you edit.
Kanban board: full drag and drop between columns. Inline editing (double-click on any card). Search function with real-time filtering. collapsible column.
Drag and drop usually means bringing in a library. Here, the state is synchronized to Python via a native HTML5 drag event connected with js_on_load and trigger(‘change’).
creative apps
Spin-to-Win wheels: Smooth CSS animations, rotation state preserved after re-rendering. Preset settings for yes/no decision, restaurant selection, team selection. You can also add custom rotation segments on the fly.
ML apps
This is where gr.HTML becomes very interesting for ML work. You can build specialized components that can handle your exact output formats and use them just like the built-in Gradio components.
Detection Viewer: Custom viewer for object detection, instance segmentation, and pose estimation results. Render bounding boxes, segmentation masks, keypoints, and skeleton connections all in a reusable gr.HTML subclass that can be plugged directly into your model pipeline.
The community has also built some creative components using gr.HTML.
3D camera controls for image editing: Complete Three.js viewport within the Gradio app! Drag handles to control azimuth, altitude, and distance. Uploaded images are displayed in a 3D scene, and camera parameters are input directly into Qwen’s modern image editing model. This type of interactive 3D control typically requires a separate front end. In Gradio, it’s one gr.HTML subclass 🔥
Real-time audio transcription: Live transcription using Mistral’s Voxtral model. Transcript display is a custom gr.HTML component with animated status badges, a live WPM counter, and styled output that updates as you speak. Real-time UI feedback without using React!
structure
All gr.HTML components use three templates.
gr.HTML( value={“count”: 0}, html_template=“Clicked ${value.count} times”css_template=“Button { background: #667eea; color: white; }”js_on_load=“”
element.querySelector(‘button’).onclick = () => {
props.value = { count: props.value.count + 1 };
trigger(‘change’);
};
“”
)
${value} inserts Python state. Update props.value from JavaScript. trigger(‘change’) returns synchronously to Python. That’s the whole API.
For reusable components, subclass gr.HTML.
class heat map(gr.HTML):
surely __Initialization__(self, value =nonetheme =“green”**Quagus):
wonderful().__init__( value=value, theme=theme, html_template=TEMPLATE, css_template=STYLES, js_on_load=SCRIPT, **kwargs )
Heatmap() now works like gr.Image() and gr.Slider(). You can use this in blocks and attach event handlers as needed.
Why is this important for Vibe coding?
When you hire LLM to build a custom component, a single file output is all you need. There’s no need to “create a style file now” or “connect this to a build configuration”. There is only one Python file ready to run.
The feedback loop looks like this: Explain what you need → Get the code → Gradio app.py → See it working → Explain what you want to fix → Repeat. In Gradio’s reload mode, each cycle takes a few seconds.
Deploy to a space using gradio deployment or share a temporary link with demo.launch(share=True). From an idea to a live app within seconds.
Gradio comes with 32 interactive components, but your perfect AI web app may require something special. That’s where gr.HTML comes into play.
If you have an idea, try building it in gr.HTML. Write what you need for LLM, generate the code, and run it. You might be surprised that it can be shipped in under 5 minutes.
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