Background
At the beginning of the night mode project, the color variables in Minerva were converted from Less variables to CSS variables. Since then, the strategy for integrating CSS variables in the MediaWiki ecosystem has changed.
The current recommendation for using CSS variables in MediaWiki is not to use them directly, but rather to use the existing Less variables and have Codex convert them to CSS variables under the hood, e.g: @color-base: var( --color-base );
As of Codex 1.5.0 (description of changes here:T354889) the underlying CSS variables now include fallback values, e.g: @color-base: var( --color-base, #202122 ); which means that our CSS variable implementation in Minerva now diverges from the one in Codex.
User story
- As a MediaWiki developers, we should align our front-end implementations with current best practices based on the Codex UI library.
Requirements
- This should largely be a revert of the following patch: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/c/mediawiki/skins/MinervaNeue/+/995065
Design
- No visual changes
Acceptance criteria
- No visual changes
- Minerva uses Less variables for color
- Any documentation or ADRs regarding CSS variable usage in Minerva is updated
Communication criteria - does this need an announcement or discussion?
- No
