HTML5 ★ Boilerplate

HTML5 Boilerplate is the professional frontend developers's base HTML/CSS/JS template for a fast, robust and future-safe site.

After more than four years in iterative development, you get the best of the best practices baked in: cross-browser normalization, performance optimizations, even optional features like cross-domain XHR and Flash. A starter Apache .htaccess config file hooks you up with caching rules and preps your site to serve HTML5 video, use @font-face, and drop your site's filesize by half with robust gzipping.

Boilerplate is not a framework, nor does it prescribe any philosophy of development, it's just got some tricks to get your project off the ground quickly and right-footed.

Why it is good

• Cross-browser compatible (IE6+, yeah we got that.)
• HTML5 ready. Use the new tags with certainty.
• Optimal caching and compression rules for grade-A performance
• Best practice site configuration defaults
• Mobile browser optimizations
• Progressive enhancement graceful degradation … yeah yeah we got that
• IE specific classes for maximum cross-browser control
• Handy .no-js and .js classes to style based on capability
• Console.log nerfing so you won't break anyone by mistake.
• Never go wrong with your doctype or markup!
• An optimal print stylesheet, performance optimized.
• iOS, Android, Opera Mobile-adaptable markup and CSS skeleton.
• .clearfix, .visuallyhidden classes to style things wisely and accessibly.
• .htaccess file that allows proper use of HTML5 features and faster page load
• CDN hosted jQuery with local fallback failsafe.
• Think there's too much? The HTML5 Boilerplate is delete-key friendly. :)

Want to dive in?