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HTML5 Boilerplate homepage | Documentation table of contents

Usage

The most basic usage of HTML5 Boilerplate is to create a static site or simple app. Once you've downloaded or cloned the project, that process looks something like this:

  1. Set up the basic structure of the site.
  2. Add some content, style, and functionality.
  3. Run your site locally to see how it looks.
  4. Deploy your site.

Cool, right? It is. That said, the smart defaults, baseline elements, default attribute values and various other utilities that HTML5 Boilerplate offers can serve as the foundation for whatever you're interested in building.

Even the basic use-case of a simple static site can be enhanced by manipulating the code through an automated build process. Moving up in complexity HTML5 Boilerplate can be integrated with whatever front-end framework, CMS or e-commerce platform you're working with. Mix-and-match to your heart's content. Use what you need (toss it in a blender if you need to) and discard the rest. HTML5 Boilerplate is a starting point, not a destination.

Basic structure

A basic HTML5 Boilerplate site initially looks something like this:

.
├── css
│   ├── normalize.css
│   └── style.css
├── doc
├── img
├── js
│   ├── app.js
│   └── vendor
│       └── modernizr.min.js
├── .editorconfig
├── 404.html
├── favicon.ico
├── icon.png
├── icon.svg
├── index.html
├── package.json
├── robots.txt
├── site.webmanifest
├── tile.png
├── tile-wide.png
└── webpack.common.js
└── webpack.config.dev.js
└── webpack.config.prod.js

What follows is a general overview of each major part and how to use them.

css

This directory should contain all your project's CSS files. It includes some initial CSS to help get you started from a solid foundation. About the CSS.

doc

This directory contains all the HTML5 Boilerplate documentation. You can use it as the location and basis for your own project's documentation.

js

This directory should contain all your project's JS files. Libraries, plugins, and custom code can all be included here. It includes some initial JS to help get you started. About the JavaScript.

404.html

A helpful custom 404 to get you started.

.editorconfig

The .editorconfig file is provided in order to encourage and help you and your team to maintain consistent coding styles between different editors and IDEs. Read more about the .editorconfig file.

index.html

This is the default HTML skeleton that should form the basis of all pages on your site. If you are using a server-side templating framework, then you will need to integrate this starting HTML with your setup.

Make sure that you update the URLs for the referenced CSS and JavaScript if you modify the directory structure at all.

package.json

Edit this file to describe your application, add dependencies, scripts and other properties related to node based development and the npm registry

robots.txt

Edit this file to include any pages you need hidden from search engines.

Icons

Replace the default favicon.ico, tile.png, tile-wide.png and Apple Touch Icon with your own.

If you want to use different Apple Touch Icons for different resolutions please refer to the according documentation.

Webpack

The project contains a simple webpack configuration.

To get started developing a site with a development server, run the following commands from within the /dist/ folder in the project's repo or within the root folder of the dowloaded project files, the folder created by npm install or the project folder created by running create-html5-boilerplate

npm install
npm run start

This will start a Webpack development server with hot reloading of edited files.

To package a site for production run

npm run build

This command will bundle up the site's JavaScript and copy over static assets to the newly created dist folder.

There are three files:

webpack.common.js

Both the production and development scripts inherit from this common script.

webpack.config.dev.js

This development configuration defines the behavior of development server.

webpack.config.prod.js

This production configuration defines the behavior of the production build.

It copies the following files and folders to the dist folder:

  • css
  • img
  • js/vendor
  • 404.html
  • favicon.ico
  • icon.png
  • icon.svg
  • index.html
  • robots.txt
  • site.webmanifest
  • tile.png
  • tile-wide.png

js/vendor is copied over in order to allow you to use unprocessed JS files (like Modernizr) in addition to the files bundled based on the project's entry point app.js.