
Modern Web Guidance
Run a mandatory best-practice lookup before any HTML, CSS, or client-side JavaScript work so layout, APIs, and performance patterns match the current web platform.
Overview
Modern Web Guidance is an agent skill most often used in Build (also Ship) that searches current HTML/CSS/JS best practices so implementations follow up-to-date platform patterns instead of stale training defaults.
Install
npx skills add https://github.com/googlechrome/modern-web-guidance --skill modern-web-guidanceWhat is this skill?
- MANDATORY first step for HTML/CSS and client-side JS—explicitly not for backend SQL, CI/CD, or generic local scripts
- Search-driven guides for UI/layout (dialogs, `:has()`, anchor positioning), scroll/View Transitions, and CWV (LCP, INP)
- Covers modern system APIs (filesystem access, WebUSB, WebSockets) and React/Vue/Angular adaptation patterns
- Step 1 workflow: search use cases before inventing ad-hoc components or heavy dependencies
Adoption & trust: 6.2k installs on skills.sh; 1.3k GitHub stars; 2/3 security scanners passed (skills.sh audits).
What problem does it solve?
You are about to ship UI or client JS and the agent may recreate outdated CSS, APIs, or performance patterns from pre-2024 training data.
Who is it for?
Solo builders implementing or refactoring visible web UI, motion, forms, or framework-specific styling who want a enforced research step before the first line of markup.
Skip if: Pure backend API work, database modeling, CI/CD, Docker, ESLint-only tasks, or Python/Go utility scripts—the skill explicitly says not to trigger there.
When should I use this skill?
MANDATORY first for all HTML/CSS and client-side JS tasks; UI/layout, scroll/motion, CWV, Web APIs, React/Vue/Angular frontend, forms— not backend SQL, CI/CD, Docker, or generic ESLint/Git scripts.
What do I get? / Deliverables
You get a use-case-matched modern web guide before coding, reducing wrong layouts, missed CWV fixes, and unnecessary dependencies.
- Use-case-matched modern web guidance applied to the implementation plan or code
Recommended Skills
Journey fit
Spans multiple journey phases - primary shelf plus alternate fits below.
Canonical shelf is Build because the skill gates UI components, styling, and in-browser behavior—the core solo-builder product surface. Frontend is where modals, scroll-driven motion, container queries, and framework-specific layout land in day-to-day implementation.
Where it fits
Search glassmorphism, backdrop-filter, and dialog patterns before building a checkout modal.
Look up anchor positioning and `:user-valid` form states before shipping a signup flow.
Pull CWV, fetch priority, and image optimization guidance before fixing LCP on a marketing page.
Check framework-specific layout guidance before refactoring a Vue or Angular shell.
How it compares
Use as a mandatory research gate before chat-driven UI code, not as a component library or design-system package.
Common Questions / FAQ
Who is modern-web-guidance for?
Solo and indie builders using Claude Code, Cursor, or similar agents on HTML, CSS, client-side JavaScript, or SPA layout who need current platform guidance before implementation.
When should I use modern-web-guidance?
At the start of any web feature in Build (frontend components, forms, framework styles) and when tuning Ship performance (CWV, image priority); skip backend SQL, Express routes, and deployment pipelines.
Is modern-web-guidance safe to install?
Review the Security Audits panel on this Prism page for ingest risk signals; the skill is a guidance search workflow—confirm any external search or fetch behavior in SKILL.md before enabling network in your agent.
SKILL.md
READMESKILL.md - Modern Web Guidance
# Modern Web Guidance A skill to search for specific web development use cases and retrieve their corresponding best practice guides. ## When to use Must use this skill: - At the **start** of implementing any web feature. - Before creating a new component, to check if a standardized pattern already exists. - To avoid implementing ad-hoc solutions or loading large dependencies unnecessarily. ## Usage Instructions ### Step 1. Search Use Cases Search with an action-oriented query summarizing what you want to achieve using the `search` command. Run `modern-web-guidance` directly with `npx`. ```sh npx -y modern-web-guidance@latest search "<query>" --skill-version 2026_05_16-c5e7870 ``` **Example Output**: ```json [ { "id": "optimize-image-priority", "description": "Optimize the loading priority of Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) candidate images.", "category": "performance", "featuresUsed": [ "Fetch priority" ], "tokenCount": 985, "similarity": 0.7289 }, { "id": "defer-rendering-heavy-content", "description": "Reduce rendering times in content-heavy web pages by deferring rendering for offscreen content.", "category": "performance", "featuresUsed": [ "content-visibility", "hidden=\"until-found\"" ], "tokenCount": 1250, "similarity": 0.6961 } ] ``` > **Note**: If search results are vague, return no matches, or show low similarity scores, run the `list` command to browse all guides: > ```sh > npx -y modern-web-guidance@latest list > ``` --- ### Step 2. Retrieve Best Practices Once you have a relevant `id` from the search results, call this script using the `retrieve` command to get the full guide. You can pass multiple IDs separated by commas. ```sh npx -y modern-web-guidance@latest retrieve "<id>" ``` **Example Output**: `The markdown content of the guide describing implementation steps...` ## Using npx - IMPORTANT: on Windows, using `npx` may fail. Use `npx.cmd ...` instead. - Network access is required for fetching npm packages needed by the task. - If the `npx -y modern-web-guidance…` command hangs, you may be offline. Try running again in offline mode: `npx --offline …`. - The `--skill-version` flag is used to determine if this SKILL.md is out of date. If it is, a warning message is logged to stderr. ## Guidelines - Always search **first** to find the most relevant guides. - These guides are usually framework-agnostic; adapt them correctly to your setup. - Do not hallucinate guides or ignore them; they represent the preferred local standard for the user's project. ## Interpreting Browser Support & Fallbacks * **Default Behavior**: All guides assume **Baseline Widely available** features are safe to use without fallbacks. For features that are not Baseline widely available, you **MUST** follow the fallback recommendations in the guide, unless the user has specified a custom browser support policy. * **Custom