HTML5 Boilerplate: A Professional Front-End Template for Web Development
Summary
HTML5 Boilerplate is a widely-used, professional front-end template designed for building fast, robust, and adaptable web applications and sites. It encapsulates over a decade of community knowledge and iterative development, offering a solid foundation without imposing specific frameworks. This project provides a finely-tuned starter kit for developers aiming for best practices in web development.
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Introduction
HTML5 Boilerplate is a professional, battle-tested front-end template for building fast, robust, and adaptable web applications or sites. The project is the culmination of over 10 years of iterative development and community knowledge, providing a solid foundation without imposing a specific development philosophy or framework. It's designed with progressive enhancement in mind, offering a finely-tuned starter kit that includes placeholder Open Graph elements, an example package.json with WebPack commands, useful CSS helper classes, and default print styles.
Installation
Getting started with HTML5 Boilerplate is straightforward, offering several flexible options to integrate it into your project.
The recommended way to quickly fetch the latest npm published package is using create-html5-boilerplate via npx:
npx create-html5-boilerplate my-new-site
cd my-new-site
npm install
npm run start
Alternatively, you can install it directly via npm or yarn:
npm install html5-boilerplate
# or
yarn add html5-boilerplate
When installing via npm or yarn, the project files for end-users are located in the node_modules/html5-boilerplate/dist folder. You may need to copy these contents into your project directory.
For a quick start using a GitHub template, you can create a new repository based on the official HTML5 Boilerplate Template Repository.
Usage Examples
After setting up your project using create-html5-boilerplate, you can immediately start a local development server:
npm run start
This command typically launches your new site in a browser, allowing you to see the boilerplate in action and begin customizing it. The core of your project, ready for deployment, will reside in the /dist/ folder, which is the published version of the boilerplate.
Why Use It
HTML5 Boilerplate stands out as an excellent choice for new web projects due to its comprehensive and thoughtful design. It offers a finely-tuned starter template, benefiting from over a decade of analysis, research, and experimentation by hundreds of contributors. Its design prioritizes progressive enhancement, ensuring broad browser support and accessibility. The template is "delete-key friendly," meaning you can easily remove parts you don't need, making it highly adaptable to various project requirements. Furthermore, it comes with extensive documentation, providing a valuable resource for both understanding the boilerplate and extending it for your specific needs.