How Best to Provide Compiled Stylesheets

[wesleyboar]

Goal

Design a solution to offer compiled and minified stylesheets without committing dist/ to the repository.

Background

The repository has a /dist folder. This folder provides compilation of stylesheets using non-native CSS (that is made native via postcss) and minifies the CSS (for smaller file size).

To build and commit /dist is:

• unintuitive software development
• extra, easy-to-forget step
• excess data

Expectations

1. The NPM Package¹ offers compiled files.
   ^{Why? So clients can use non-native CSS, from releases, on software that does not compile CSS.}
2. The NPM Package¹ offers minification.
   ^{Why? So users download smaller files.}
3. The repository will not save compiled stylesheets from source that uses all native syntax.
   ^{Why? Because a compiled, minified version of all native CSS is redundant.}
4. Client can use, before a release, compiled stylesheet from source that uses non-native syntax.
   ^{Why? So clients can use non-native CSS, from a commit-ish (e.g. commit, branches, tag, pre-releases), on software that does not compile CSS.}
5. (Maybe) Paths to compiled files are less different from paths to source files.
   ^{Currently src/lib/_imports/components/c-some-thing.css is compiled to dist/components/c-some-thing.css.}

References

• https://github.com/TACC/Core-Styles/tree/v2.26.0/dist
• https://github.com/twbs/bootstrap/tree/main/dist/css

Footnotes

1. @tacc/core-styles ↩ ↩²

[wesleyboar]

Ideas

A. Only Commit /dist During Release, and As Needed

0. Retain existing committed files.
1. Do not commit dist files by default (use .gitignore).
2. Yet…
   • Do commit dist files on release.
     ^{(Publish step runs a script that runs git add dist.)}
   • Do commit dist files when client must test compiled CSS for incomplete feature.
     ^{(Dev manually runs git add dist/components/c-some-thing.css.)}

[wesleyboar]

Ideas

B. Publish /dist, Commit As Needed Except on main

Solution:

• Do not commit /dist.
• Name source files as *.postcss.
• Include /dist when publishing to NPM.
• Allow commits of.css near .postcss.
• Do not allow .css files in main branch.
  ^{Well, epic/v3 for now.}

Completed:

• epic/v3: do not commit /dist & source files as .postcss #407
• epic/v3: allow dev to build file(s) in place #408
• epic/v3: do not allow built-in-place css on main #409