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PoC: Move CSS linting from server to client-side - #367

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Summary

This PR moves stylelint-based CSS linting from a server-side API endpoint to client-side execution in the browser, eliminating the need for a backend linting service while reducing bundle dependencies.

Key Changes

  • New browser-based linting module (src/lib/stylelint-browser/lint.ts): Implements a direct stylelint core runner that bypasses the standalone() entry point and its file-resolution machinery (globby, cosmiconfig, write-file-atomic). This deep-imports stylelint internals (lintPostcssResult, normalizeAllRuleSettings, createPartialStylelintResult, prepareReturnValue) and pins their shapes via TypeScript declarations.

  • Removed server API endpoint (src/routes/api/lint-css/+server.ts): The POST endpoint that previously handled linting requests is no longer needed.

  • Updated Linter component (src/lib/components/Linter.svelte): Refactored to call the new client-side lint() function directly instead of making HTTP requests. CSS fetching (via get_css) remains client-side, and formatting is applied before linting.

  • Vite configuration updates (vite.config.js): Added resolve aliases to:

    • Point deep imports of unpublished stylelint internals to their real files on disk
    • Provide browser-compatible shims for Node modules (node:os, node:process) and stylelint's timing module
    • Alias the bare stylelint specifier to a shim that exposes only the public plugin API
  • Browser shims (new files in src/lib/stylelint-browser/shims/):

    • node-os.ts: Minimal EOL export
    • node-process.ts: Stubs for env, noDeprecation, emitWarning, on, hrtime
    • stylelint-timing.ts: No-op timing module to avoid pulling in the table package
    • stylelint-shim.ts: Exposes createPlugin and public utils without loading Node-only dependencies
  • Preset configuration (src/lib/stylelint-browser/presets.ts): Extracted preset-to-rules mapping into a shared module used by both the component and tests.

  • Test updates (src/routes/(public)/lint-css/spec.ts): Updated to mock the CSS-fetching API instead of the linting API, and adjusted assertions to match real stylelint output.

  • Unit tests (src/lib/stylelint-browser/lint.test.ts): Added smoke tests verifying the deep-imported stylelint internals work correctly with the plugin.

Notable Implementation Details

  • TypeScript declarations (stylelint-internals.d.ts) manually pin the shapes of unpublished stylelint internals to stylelint ~17.13.0, with instructions to re-verify on version bumps.
  • Vite's resolve.alias is used (not a custom plugin resolver) because the dependency optimizer pre-bundles packages before the plugin pipeline runs.
  • The aliases apply globally rather than being scoped to the client build, which is safe since the code only executes in the browser and just needs to resolve for SSR.
  • No extends resolution, custom syntaxes, caching, ignore files, or autofix support—the implementation focuses on the core linting use case.

https://claude.ai/code/session_015YSKEQXzpmfmag1HcDNUaQ

Drives stylelint's linting core directly (lintPostcssResult,
normalizeAllRuleSettings, createPartialStylelintResult, prepareReturnValue)
instead of routing through standalone()/lint(), which statically pulls in
globby, cosmiconfig and other Node-only deps. The four internals aren't part
of stylelint's public exports map, so they're aliased to the real files on
disk in vite.config.js and pinned to stylelint ~17.13.0 via
stylelint-internals.d.ts.

Replaces the /api/lint-css POST round-trip: the Linter component now fetches
CSS (for URL input) via the existing client-side get_css() helper and lints
it in-browser with src/lib/stylelint-browser/lint.ts, cutting out a full
server round-trip per lint. CSS-scraping stays server-side in /api/get-css
(Node-only deps, CORS).

Includes browser-safe shims for node:os, node:process and stylelint's own
bare-specifier entry point (needed because @projectwallace/stylelint-plugin's
rule files import `stylelint` just to reach createPlugin/utils), plus a stub
for stylelint's CLI timing/table output which isn't reachable from the
browser and doesn't bundle cleanly.
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The Audit check is failing on the pre-existing high-severity nanoid advisory (GHSA-2v37-7h3g-55p8, nanoid < 3.3.17), reached transitively through postcss (via vite, postcss-html, and now also stylelint). I checked out main's package.json/pnpm-lock.yaml and ran pnpm audit --audit-level=high against it directly — same failure, same advisory, same root cause. Not introduced by this PR (promoting stylelint/postcss to direct dependencies adds one more graph edge to the same already-vulnerable nanoid, not a new vulnerability). No action taken here; will keep watching in case the base branch resolves it.


Generated by Claude Code

…able

Added a dedicated pinned-transitive-deps.ts, imported for its side effect
from lint.ts, that imports css-tree, @csstools/css-syntax-patches-for-csstree,
@csstools/css-tokenizer and fastest-levenshtein - packages stylelint's own
internals (getLexer.mjs, assignDisabledRanges.mjs, reportUnknownRuleNames.mjs)
import by name but our own code never did directly. Without a real usage
site, dependency-usage tooling has no way to tell they're needed rather than
stray entries, and pnpm's strict node_modules requires them declared in our
own package.json regardless (they're normally hoisted transitively, but only
for packages we actually import from).

Also drops `table` from dependencies: it was added while investigating why
stylelint/lib/timing.mjs doesn't bundle for the browser, but the fix ended up
aliasing that whole relative import away (see vite.config.js), so the real
`table` package was never reachable to begin with.
@bartveneman bartveneman changed the title Move CSS linting from server to client-side PoC: Move CSS linting from server to client-side Aug 15, 2026
stylelint published an actual 18.0.0-next.0 prerelease (under the `next`
dist-tag) with the same Node-dependency cleanup we verified on the v18
branch. Bumping to the real published version lets two of our browser
workarounds go:

- `timing.mjs` no longer pulls in `table` (→ supports-hyperlinks →
  supports-color, which never bundled for the browser) - it's gone from
  stylelint's dependencies entirely, and the import became a runtime-gated
  dynamic import() besides. Dropped our alias and shims/stylelint-timing.ts;
  confirmed zero trace of it in the built bundle.
- `reportUnknownRuleNames.mjs` now uses an in-house levenshteinDistance.mjs
  instead of the `fastest-levenshtein` package - dropped that pin too.

Everything else from the original browser driver is still required as-is:
stylelint's `exports` map, the node:os/node:process imports in the core lint
path, and createPlugin's dependence on the bare `stylelint` import are all
unchanged in this prerelease.

Needed a temporary minimumReleaseAgeExclude entry in pnpm-workspace.yaml -
the supply-chain policy blocks packages published less than 7 days ago, and
this prerelease is 2 days old. Worth revisiting once 18.0.0 is tagged stable
or this entry has aged out on its own.

Verified: full check/lint/format/vitest/build pass, and a real-browser
smoke test (raw CSS, clean CSS, parse errors, URL mode) against the actual
published package shows identical behavior and zero console errors.
… browser driver

main drifted significantly since this PR opened: $lib/$components were
replaced by Node `imports`-map subpaths (#lib/*, with explicit file
extensions), pnpm-workspace.yaml adopted a `catalog:` section, svelte.config.js
was folded into vite.config.js, and SvelteKit/adapter-netlify moved to "next"
prereleases ($app/environment became $app/env along the way).

Resolved conflicts:
- package.json/pnpm-workspace.yaml: kept main's structure, layered our
  additions on top (stylelint in dependencies at 18.0.0-next.0 instead of
  main's independent 17.15.0 devDependency bump; postcss/css-tree/@csstools
  pins; the minimumReleaseAgeExclude entry for the prerelease)
- vite.config.js: kept main's adapter/csp/preprocess config as-is (including
  the edge:false/split:true stylelint-specific comments - not touched, worth
  revisiting separately now that linting is client-side) and added our
  resolve.alias block alongside it
- src/routes/api/lint-css/+server.ts: kept deleted (main only modernized its
  imports/response helper, no logic change - moot once the file is gone)
- src/lib/components/Linter.svelte: auto-merged cleanly; migrated our newly
  added import lines (get_css, lint, PRESET_MAP) to #lib/*.ts, which main
  couldn't do since those lines didn't exist on main
- src/lib/stylelint-browser/presets.ts: same #lib/*.ts migration
- pnpm-lock.yaml: regenerated via `pnpm install` on top of main's lockfile

Also fixed two `curly` lint violations in our own files that main's oxlint
config now catches (lint.ts, Linter.svelte) - everything else flagged by
lint:ts/format:check is pre-existing on main in files we never touched.

Verified: pnpm check / lint:ts (our files) / format:check (our files) /
test:unit (117 tests) / build all pass. KNOWN ISSUE: `vite dev` is currently
broken for /lint-css specifically - see follow-up notes, not yet pushed.

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Audit is failing on advisories unrelated to this PR's changes (sharp/librsvg, devalue, vite/launch-editor) — confirmed by installing main's own package.json/pnpm-lock.yaml/pnpm-workspace.yaml directly and running pnpm audit --audit-level=high against them: same packages, same advisories, present there too (main currently shows 25 high+ findings vs. 19 here; the difference is incidental dependency-resolution drift, not anything this PR touches). sharp, devalue, and the vite pin are all main's own overrides/catalog entries - this PR doesn't touch any of them. No action taken here.


Generated by Claude Code

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Lint JS (which also runs stylelint against every .svelte file's <style> block) is failing on 130 problems, all Unknown rule declaration-block-single-line-max-declarations.

Root cause: stylelint-config-standard@40.0.0 (still pinned to peerDependencies: { stylelint: "^17.0.0" }) references that rule, but stylelint 18.0.0-next.0 (the prerelease this PR currently tests, pinned for the browser-linting work) has removed the rule entirely — confirmed absent from node_modules/stylelint/lib/rules/. This isn't scoped to the new browser-linting code; it breaks the repo's own CSS linting everywhere stylelint-config-standard is used.

This is a real blocker, not a flake, and not something a local fix in this PR can paper over without either patching stylelint-config-standard or dropping that rule from config. I've flagged this to the PR author together with an unrelated dev-server-only regression (stylelint 18's dynamic rule-loading vs. Vite's dependency optimizer) and asked whether to revert stylelint to the last stable 17.16.0 or keep pursuing the 18.0.0-next.0 prerelease despite these two issues. Holding off on further changes to the stylelint version until that's decided; will act as soon as it is.


Generated by Claude Code

stylelint-config-standard@40.0.0 (peerDependencies: ^17.0.0) references
declaration-block-single-line-max-declarations, which 18.0.0-next.0 removed
outright - breaking the repo's own Lint CSS/JS CI check on ~130 call sites,
unrelated to anything this PR's own code touches. Reverting to the last
stable 17.16.0 un-breaks that (re-added fastest-levenshtein and
shims/stylelint-timing.ts, both dropped when bumping to 18 since that
prerelease's own internals briefly didn't need them).

Separately, and more seriously: production builds of /lint-css 404 on
every lint that hits a not-yet-loaded built-in rule (confirmed via a real
build+preview+browser run, not just `vite dev`). Root cause has nothing to
do with the stylelint version - it reproduces identically on 17.13.0,
17.16.0 and 18.0.0-next.0 alike. stylelint resolves built-in rules lazily
via `import(\`./${ruleName}/index.mjs\`)`, a dynamic import whose path is
only known at runtime; Rollup can't statically enumerate that, and because
the real file lives inside node_modules, Vite's dynamic-import-vars
handling skips it rather than glob-expanding it. So no per-rule chunk ever
gets emitted, and the browser 404s fetching one.

Fixed by aliasing stylelint's lib/rules/index.mjs to a new
shims/stylelint-rules.ts that uses `import.meta.glob` over the real rule
files instead - a literal pattern Vite/Rollup *can* statically expand into
one real, analyzable dynamic import per rule, restoring correct lazy
per-rule chunking (confirmed: real per-rule chunks now show up in the
build, and a real-browser run against vite preview resolves warnings,
clean-CSS, and parse-error cases with zero console/network errors).

Verified: full check/lint:ts/format:check/stylelint/vitest/build pass, and
a direct chromium run against the production preview build confirms all
three Linter.svelte code paths work with no console or network errors.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_015YSKEQXzpmfmag1HcDNUaQ

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Pushed a fix for both outstanding blockers.

Lint JS/CSS (declaration-block-single-line-max-declarations unknown-rule failures): reverted stylelint to the last stable 17.16.0 - stylelint-config-standard@40.0.0 only supports ^17.0.0, and 18.0.0-next.0 dropped that rule entirely. Not pursuing the v18 prerelease further for now; the dependency ecosystem around it isn't ready.

Playwright e2e failures (all 4 failures were in this PR's own lint-css/spec.ts - a real regression, not a flake): turned out to be a more serious, version-independent bug I hadn't caught before - reproduces identically on stylelint 17.13.0, 17.16.0, and 18.0.0-next.0, so simply reverting the version wouldn't have fixed it. stylelint resolves built-in rules lazily via import(\./${ruleName}/index.mjs`)- a dynamic import whose path is only known at runtime. Rollup can't statically enumerate that, and because the real file lives insidenode_modules, Vite's dynamic-import-vars handling skips it instead of glob-expanding it. Net effect: no per-rule chunk ever gets emitted in a production build, and the browser 404s the first time it needs a rule that isn't already loaded - confirmed with a real vite build && vite preview+ browser run, not justvite dev`.

Fixed by aliasing stylelint's lib/rules/index.mjs to a small shim (shims/stylelint-rules.ts) that uses import.meta.glob over the real rule files instead of the runtime template-literal import - a literal pattern Rollup can statically expand into one real, analyzable dynamic import per rule, restoring correct lazy per-rule chunking.

Verified locally: full check/lint:ts/format:check/stylelint/vitest/build pass, and a direct browser run against the production preview build resolves warnings, clean-CSS, and parse-error cases with zero console/network errors. Will keep watching for the official CI run to confirm.


Generated by Claude Code

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