Bring the specificity of utilities like "space-x/y-*" and "divide-*" up to "0,1,0"

[silvenon]

Currently divide-gray-75 compiles down to:

:where(.divide-gray-75 > :not(:last-child)) {
  border-color: var(--color-gray-75);
}

Bringing its specificity down to 0,0,0, whereas most utilities have 0,1,0. The problem with 0,0,0 if anything comes after it that targets it, it will override it, even a 0,1,0 selector that came before it.

But I'm developing a component library (not a prime use for Tailwind, I know), and I can't control the styles of the apps using it. It would really help me to bring the specificity of all these utilities back to 0,1,0.

I assume :where is intended to shoot down the specificity because 0,2,0 was making it impossible for other utilities to override them? If not, then simply replacing it with :is would be great, if yes then use :where for the :not part instead to achieve 0,1,0:

.divide-gray-75 > :not(:where(:last-child)) {
  border-color: var(--color-gray-75);
}

What do you think? This would be an enormous help because it's a significant blocker for me in migrating to Tailwind v4.

[wongjn]

Probably not something that could be introduced into v4 since it would be a breaking change. Perhaps create your own version that has the specificity you'd like, or add a variant to increase specificity.

[silvenon]

If anyone is counting on the specificity of those utilities that would be highly unusual, but breaking for them then. But I'm glad that there's a workaround, thanks for the suggestion. I forgot how easy creating utilities is, I can just override these.