Simple Boilerplate is a Webpack 5 starter scaffold for hand-written HTML, JavaScript, and CSS that bundles a preconfigured toolchain including Babel, PostCSS, ESLint, Stylelint, Prettier, and a live-reload development server.
What is Simple Boilerplate?
Simple Boilerplate is a front-end build template built around Webpack 5, Babel, PostCSS, ESLint, Stylelint, Prettier, and the webpack devServer. It takes plain HTML, JS, and CSS source files as input and outputs a production-ready dist/ folder when you run npm run build. It is published on GitHub by fedorovsky and has a ready-to-view demo page.
Key Features
- Webpack 5 — bundles all source files into a production
dist/folder with a singlenpm run buildcommand. - Babel — transpiles modern JavaScript syntax for broader browser support.
- PostCSS — processes CSS including CSS-next features, as seen in the project's
css-nexttopic tag. - ESLint — lints JavaScript for errors and style inconsistencies.
- Stylelint — lints CSS to keep stylesheets consistent.
- Prettier — automatically formats code for a uniform style.
- devServer — launches a live-reload server at http://localhost:8000/ when you run
npm run start. - npx scaffold —
npx create-simple-boilerplate new-sitedownloads the project into anew-sitefolder, then you install and start it.
Who is it for?
- Front-end developers who want a lightweight, preconfigured build setup without committing to a framework like React or Vue.
- Static site projects that need live reload during development and a minified production build in
dist/. - Teams standardizing code quality — the included ESLint, Stylelint, and Prettier configuration can be run together with
npm run fix.
What can you do with it?
- Quickly prototype a static page: scaffold with the npx command, then use the dev server to see changes instantly at localhost:8000.
- Write modern CSS: use PostCSS and CSS-next syntax, then let the build process handle transpiling and bundling.
- Automate linting fixes: run
npm run fixto automatically fix JavaScript and CSS issues through the configured linters.
How does Simple Boilerplate work?
- Download the repository with
git clone https://github.com/fedorovsky/simple-boilerplate simple-boilerplateor runnpx create-simple-boilerplate new-site. - Install dependencies with
npm install(oryarn install). - Run
npm run startto open a live-reload dev server at http://localhost:8000/. - Run
npm run buildto generate a production build in thedist/folder.
FAQ
Is Simple Boilerplate free?
The project is a public GitHub repository, so you can clone it and use it freely for your own projects.
Does Simple Boilerplate work with yarn?
Yes. The README includes a command table showing yarn equivalents for install, start, build, and fix (yarn install, yarn start, yarn build, yarn fix).
What does the npx command do?
npx create-simple-boilerplate new-site downloads the boilerplate into a folder named new-site, and then you run npm install and npm start to launch it, skipping the manual git clone step.
Where is the production build output placed?
Running npm run build places the bundled output in the dist/ folder, as stated in the README.
Does the boilerplate include React or Vue?
No. The project describes itself as a boilerplate for "HTML, JS and CSS" and its topic tags focus on those technologies, so it is intended for vanilla front-end development.
