@mdn/browser-compat-data

@mdn/browser-compat-data

https://github.com/mdn/browser-compat-data

The browser-compat-data ("BCD") project contains machine-readable browser (and JavaScript runtime) compatibility data for Web technologies, such as Web APIs, JavaScript features, CSS properties and more. Our goal is to document accurate compatibility data for Web technologies, so web developers may write cross-browser compatible websites easier. BCD is used in web apps and software such as MDN Web Docs, CanIUse, Visual Studio Code, WebStorm and more.

Read how this project is governed.

Chat with us on Matrix at chat.mozilla.org#mdn!

Are you interested in contributing to this project? Check out the Contributing to browser-compat-data documentation.

[!TIP] Looking for something? Consult the alphabetical index of the project documentation.

Installation and Import

NodeJS

You can install @mdn/browser-compat-data as a node package.

npm install @mdn/browser-compat-data
# ...or...
yarn add @mdn/browser-compat-data

Then, you can import BCD into your project with either import or require():

// ESM with Import Attributes (NodeJS 20+)
import bcd from '@mdn/browser-compat-data' with { type: 'json' };
// ...or...
const { default: bcd } = await import('@mdn/browser-compat-data', {
  with: { type: 'json' },
});

// ...or...

// ESM with Import Assertions (NodeJS 16+)
import bcd from '@mdn/browser-compat-data' assert { type: 'json' };
// ...or...
const { default: bcd } = await import('@mdn/browser-compat-data', {
  assert: { type: 'json' },
});

// ...or...

// ESM Wrapper for older NodeJS versions (NodeJS v12+)
import bcd from '@mdn/browser-compat-data/forLegacyNode';
// ...or...
const { default: bcd } = await import('@mdn/browser-compat-data/forLegacyNode');

// ...or...

// CommonJS Module (Any NodeJS)
const bcd = require('@mdn/browser-compat-data');

Deno/Browsers

You can import @mdn/browser-compat-data using a CDN.

// ESM with Import Attributes (Deno 1.37+)
import bcd from 'https://unpkg.com/@mdn/browser-compat-data' with { type: 'json' };
// ...or...
const { default: bcd } = await import(
  'https://unpkg.com/@mdn/browser-compat-data',
  {
    with: { type: 'json' },
  }
);

// ...or...

// ESM with Import Assertions (Deno 1.17+)
import bcd from 'https://unpkg.com/@mdn/browser-compat-data' assert { type: 'json' };
// ...or...
const { default: bcd } = await import(
  'https://unpkg.com/@mdn/browser-compat-data',
  {
    assert: { type: 'json' },
  }
);

// ...or...

// Fetch Method (Deno 1.0+)
const bcd = await fetch('https://unpkg.com/@mdn/browser-compat-data').then(
  (response) => response.json(),
);

Other Languages

You can obtain the raw compatibility data for @mdn/browser-compat-data using a CDN and loading the data.json file included in releases.

https://unpkg.com/@mdn/browser-compat-data/data.json

Usage

Once you have imported BCD, you can access the compatibility data for any feature by accessing the properties of the dictionary.

// Grab the desired support statement
const support = bcd.css.properties.background.__compat;
// returns a compat data object (see schema)

// You may use any syntax to obtain dictionary items
const support = bcd['api']['Document']['body']['__compat'];

TypeScript Support

BCD exports TypeScript type definitions. Type definitions are automatically generated from the schema definitions.

Package contents

The @mdn/browser-compat-data package contains a tree of objects, with support and browser data objects at their leaves. There are over 15,000 features in the dataset; this documentation highlights significant portions, but many others exist at various levels of the tree.

The definitive description of the format used to represent individual features and browsers is the schema definitions.

Apart from the explicitly documented objects below, feature-level support data may change at any time. See Semantic versioning policy for details.

The package contains the following top-level objects:

__meta

An object containing the following package metadata:

• version - the package version
• timestamp - the timestamp of when the package version was built

api

Data for Web API features.

browsers

Data for browsers and JavaScript runtimes. See the browser schema for details.

css

Data for CSS features, including:

• at-rules - at-rules (e.g. @media)
• properties - Properties (e.g. background, color, font-variant)
• selectors - Selectors (such as basic selectors, combinators, or pseudo elements)
• types - Value types for rule values

html

Data for HTML features, including:

• elements - Elements
• global_attributes - Global attributes

http

Data for HTTP features, including:

• headers - Request and response headers
• methods - Request methods
• status - Status codes

javascript

Data for JavaScript language features, including:

• builtins - Built-in objects
• classes - Class definition features
• functions - Function features
• grammar - Language grammar
• operators - Mathematical and logical operators
• statements - Language statements and expressions

manifests

• webapp - Web App manifest keys

mathml

Data for MathML features, including:

• elements - Elements

svg

Data for SVG features, including:

• attributes - Attributes
• elements - Elements

webassembly

Data for WebAssembly features.

webdriver

Data for WebDriver features, including:

• bidi - WebDriver BiDi protocol
• classic - WebDriver Classic protocol

webextensions

Data for WebExtensions features, including:

• api - WebExtension-specific APIs
• manifest - manifest.json keys

Semantic versioning policy

For the purposes of semantic versioning (SemVer), the public API consists of:

• The high-level namespace objects documented in Package contents
• The schema definitions for browser and support data structures
• The TypeScript definitions

The details of browser compatibility change frequently, as browsers ship new features, standards organizations revise specifications, and Web developers discover new bugs. We routinely publish updates to the package to reflect these changes.

You should expect lower-level namespaces, feature data, and browser data to be added, removed, or modified at any time. That said, we strive to communicate changes and preserve backward compatibility; if you rely on a currently undocumented portion of the package and want SemVer to apply to it, please open an issue.

What isn't tracked?

Now that you know what this project is, let's mention what this project isn't. This project is not:

• An extensive description of every possible detail about a feature in a browser. We do not track UI changes, irrelevant features or irrelevant flag data.
• A source for custom features added by web frameworks (e.g. React, Vue) or corporate runtimes (e.g. AWS Lambda, Azure Functions).
• A documentation of screen reader compatibility; for screen reader compatibility, check out https://a11ysupport.io/ instead.
• The location where Baseline data is hosted; while Baseline pulls from BCD, the Baseline data is managed by the W3C WebDX Community Group on their own GitHub repo.

Issues?

If you find a problem with the compatibility data (such as incorrect version numbers) or there is a new web feature you think we should document, please file a bug.

Contributing

Thank you for your interest in contributing to this project! See Contributing to browser-compat-data for more information.

Projects using the data

Here are some projects using the data, as an npm module or directly:

• Add-ons Linter - NPM package that checks add-ons for features that aren't supported by the targeted Firefox version. Used by addons.mozilla.org and the web-ext tool.
• ast-metadata-inferer - NPM package that annotates JavaScript AST nodes with metadata derived from BCD data. Used by eslint-plugin-compat.
• BCD Watch - Website that shows a weekly report of BCD changes.
• caniuse - Website that shows browser support tables based on caniuse and BCD data.
• caniuse-lite - NPM package that republishes BCD data in the caniuse format.
• CanIUse Embed - Service that allows embedding caniuse (including BCD data) into any website.
• CanIWebView - Website that shows support tables based on BCD data for WebViews and mobile browsers for comparison.
• css-declaration-sorter - NPM package that sorts CSS properties alphabetically.
• csstype - NPM package that publishes strict TypeScript/Flow types for CSS.
• Compat Report - Firefox Add-on that shows BCD data for the current site in the developer tools.
• compat-tester - NPM package that scans HTML, CSS and JS files for compatibility issues.
• JetBrains WebStorm - IDE that uses BCD data to check browser support of used CSS properties (see 2019.1 releasenotes) by generating feature lists with support data.
• JSR - Package registry that uses BCD data to generate a list of web builtins.
• Mozilla Firefox - Web browser that uses BCD data in the DevTools to show CSS property compatibility data mapped against a list of non-retired browsers.
• TypeScript - Programming language that uses BCD data to generate DOM typings.
• Visual Studio Code - IDE that uses BCD to show compatibility information for CSS features (see VSCode 1.25 release notes), and to extract MDN urls for HTML elements.
• web-features - NPM package that publishes web feature groups with Baseline statuses based on BCD data.
• web-features-explorer - Website that visualizes web features by Baseline status and month.
• webhint.io - Tool that uses BCD to checks CSS and HTML for unsupported features (see @hint/utils-compat-data package).

Acknowledgments

Thanks to:

The BrowserStack Open Source Program for testing services

Sauce Labs Open Source for testing services

LambdaTest Open Source for testing services

Similar packages

Other packages similar to @mdn/browser-compat-data

caniuse-lite

caniuse-lite is a smaller, more compact version of the data from caniuse.com. It provides browser support tables for various web technologies. Compared to @mdn/browser-compat-data, caniuse-lite is more lightweight and focuses on providing quick access to compatibility data.

browserslist

browserslist is a tool that allows you to specify which browsers you want to support in your project. It uses data from caniuse-lite to determine browser compatibility. While @mdn/browser-compat-data provides detailed compatibility information, browserslist helps you configure your project to support specific browsers.