The GOV.UK Design System launched on 22 June 2018

GOV.UK Frontend Toolkit:

• is no longer maintained
• will only be updated for major bug fixes and security patches
• does not meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.1 level AA) accessibility standard

This framework will remain available in case you’re currently using it. To help your service meet accessibility requirements, you should use the GOV.UK Design System. You can migrate to the Design System from GOV.UK Frontend Toolkit.

GOV.UK frontend toolkit

A collection of Sass and JavaScript files for using as part of your application's frontend.

This project is not tied to a specific language and is designed to be used as a dependency in as many different languages as needed.

There's a Gemfile and a package.json in this directory, but they are only for running tests and are not an indication that this project prefers Ruby or Node.js.

Installing

Ruby on Rails

We recommend you use the govuk_frontend_toolkit_gem and follow the installation instructions.

Node.js

govuk_frontend_toolkit_npm is an NPM package that can be installed or included in your package.json.

If you are using a build tool that depends on Libsass then you may need to upgrade to a more recent version to use the grid helpers. Minimal compatible versions include node-sass 1.0.0, grunt-sass 0.16.0, gulp-sass 1.2.0 and libsass 3.0.0.

Django

Requirement: NodeJS installed. This gives you Node Package Manager(NPM) which is required to install npm packages.

The easiest way to integrate it would be to create a package.json file in your application with npm init

You then install the toolkit with npm install --save govuk_frontend_toolkit. If you need javascript files, they will live in (node_modules/govuk_frontend_toolkit/javascripts). If you need stylesheets they will live in (node_modules/govuk_frontend_toolkit/stylesheets).

With Django you can use https://github.com/jrief/django-sass-processor to compile Sass files.

Note: if you need complete styles you might want to install govuk-elements-sass package that also installs toolkit

Other projects

Using the tagged versions

Each version of the toolkit is tagged with the version number in this format:

v*version number*, for example v4.1.1 for version 4.1.1.

If your dependency management tool allows the use of Git repositories as dependencies, you can point to a version by using its tag.

For example, if you are using bower, you can add the toolkit to your bower.json like so:

"govuk_frontend_toolkit": "git://github.com/alphagov/govuk_frontend_toolkit#v4.1.1" (assuming you want version 4.1.1)

Using git submodules

You can include the toolkit as a git submodule.

To add the submodule to your project run the following command substituting the path to a subdirectory in your project's assets directory:

$ git submodule add https://github.com/alphagov/govuk_frontend_toolkit.git ./path/to/assets/govuk_frontend_toolkit

We recommend you use https rather than ssh for submodules as they don't require key exchanges when deploying to remote servers.

If you clone a project with the toolkit submodule installed you will need to initialise the submodule with the following command:

$ git submodule init

To update the toolkit to the latest version you can use:

$ git submodule update

Running tests

Tests for this project use Jasmine for the JavaScript and Ruby's scss and scss-lint to check the stylesheets.

The requirements are Node.js 0.8 or higher and PhantomJS, and Ruby:

bundle install
npm install
npm test

Standard JavaScript

govuk_frontend_toolkit uses standardjs, an opinionated JavaScript linter. All JavaScript files follow its conventions. Read more

Using the local test runner

The test suite can be run by opening the ./spec/support/LocalTestRunner.html file in a browser for a more detailed trace of errors.

The files for unit tests and any supporting JavaScript should be added to ./spec/manifest.js file.

Usage

At the top of a Sass file in your project you should use an @import rule to include the file for the mixins you require, eg if you want the conditionals and typography mixins you should add:

@import '_conditionals';
@import '_typography';

You may need to include the relative path to the toolkit if it is installed as a submodule:

@import '../toolkit/_conditionals';

If you are compiling Sass from the command-line tool, here are some options we recommend.

In development:

sass --style expanded --line-numbers --load-path [path to]/govuk_frontend_toolkit/stylesheets input.scss output.css

In production:

sass --style compressed --load-path [path to]/govuk_frontend_toolkit/stylesheets input.scss output.css

Documentation

• Mixin-sets
  • Grid layout
  • Conditionals
  • Colours
  • Typography
  • CSS3
  • Buttons
  • Phase banner
  • Phase tags
• JavaScript
  • Modules
  • Media player
  • Primary links
  • Stick at top when scrolling
  • Selection buttons
  • Shim links with button role
  • Show/Hide content

Licence

Released under the MIT Licence, a copy of which can be found in the file LICENCE.