Frontend Development Guidelines

This document describes various guidelines to ensure consistency and quality across GitLab's frontend team.

Overview

GitLab is built on top of Ruby on Rails using Haml and also a JavaScript based Frontend with Vue.js. Be wary of the limitations that come with using Hamlit. We also use SCSS and plain JavaScript with modern ECMAScript standards supported through Babel and ES module support through webpack.

Working with our frontend assets requires Node (v8.10.0 or greater) and Yarn (v1.10.0 or greater). You can find information on how to install these on our installation guide.

Browser Support

For our currently-supported browsers, see our requirements.

Use BrowserStack to test with our supported browsers. Login to BrowserStack with the credentials saved in GitLab's shared 1Password account.

Initiatives

Current high-level frontend goals are listed on Frontend Epics.

Principles

High-level guidelines for contributing to GitLab.

Development Process

How we plan and execute the work on the frontend.

Architecture

How we go about making fundamental design decisions in GitLab's frontend team or make changes to our frontend development guidelines.

Testing

How we write frontend tests, run the GitLab test suite, and debug test related issues.

Pajamas Design System

Reusable components with technical and usage guidelines can be found in our Pajamas Design System.

Design Patterns

Common JavaScript design patterns in GitLab's codebase.

Vue.js Best Practices

Vue specific design patterns and practices.

Vuex

Vuex specific design patterns and practices.

Axios

Axios specific practices and gotchas.

GraphQL

How to use GraphQL

Icons and Illustrations

How we use SVG for our Icons and Illustrations.

Frontend FAQ

Read the frontend's FAQ for common small pieces of helpful information.

Style Guides

See the relevant style guides for our guidelines and for information on linting:

JavaScript. Our guide is based on the excellent Airbnb style guide with a few small changes.
SCSS: our SCSS conventions which are enforced through scss-lint.
HTML. Guidelines for writing HTML code consistent with the rest of the codebase.
Vue. Guidelines and conventions for Vue code may be found here.