2022-11-24
1787
#css
Daniel Schwarz
141822
Nov 24, 2022 â‹… 6 min read

What should a modern CSS boilerplate look like?

Daniel Schwarz I write about and advocate for better UX, accessibility, front-end code, and product management for industry leaders such as Adobe, Wix, CSS-Tricks, InVision, UXPin, Creative Bloq, Net Magazine, Web Designer Magazine, and so many more. Ex-design blog editor at SitePoint and Toptal.

Recent posts:

Fix over-caching with dynamic IO caching in Next.js 15

Next.js 15 caching overhaul: Fix overcaching with Dynamic IO and the use cache directive.

David Omotayo
Aug 6, 2025 â‹… 10 min read
LLMs are facing a QA crisis here’s how we could solve it

LLMs are facing a QA crisis: Here’s how we could solve it

LLM QA isn’t just a tooling gap — it’s a fundamental shift in how we think about software reliability.

Rosario De Chiara
Aug 4, 2025 â‹… 7 min read

Windsurf vs. Cursor: When to choose the challenger

Windsurf AI brings agentic coding and terminal control right into your IDE. We compare it to Cursor, explore its features, and build a real frontend project.

Chizaram Ken
Jul 31, 2025 â‹… 9 min read

The CSS if() function: Conditional styling will never be the same

The CSS Working Group has approved the if() function for development, a feature that promises to bring true conditional styling directly to our stylesheets.

Ikeh Akinyemi
Jul 30, 2025 â‹… 12 min read
View all posts

2 Replies to "What should a modern CSS boilerplate look like?"

  1. I totally disagree with most of your ideas.
    Changing the box-model is something I really wouldn’t do. I get that it can be a bit of a challenge to get your head around the standard box model at first, but once you get it has at least as many pros as it has cons, and as it is the standard way, it makes your CSS a lot more understandable for others that might have to work with it at some point.
    Valuing your own design over the needs of users, as you do with disabling borders and even worse outlines, is plainly rude and selfish. (That you try to be clever about t it by using focus-visible shows, that you are not totally ignorant. It might make it even worse though, as a lack of knowledge might be an excuse for a lack of wisdom…)
    You can do this for each element you actually carefully design and where you do offer good accessibility alternatives – I do it all the time. But you can never know if your client or her nephew at some point in the future will install a plugin that shows crucial elements that you made inaccessible with your laziness.

    Changin the root font-size because you want to make it easier to calculate things, that most likely should be handled totally differently (ever heard of CSS custom properties?) seem just foolish. Also, code examples with unitless values for font size or with? Really?

    Even if some of the standards of the web are disputable, your ‘solutions’ for the most part are worse.

Leave a Reply