govuk-frontend

GOV.UK Frontend

GOV.UK Frontend contains the code you need to start building a user interface for government platforms and services.

See live examples of GOV.UK Frontend components, and guidance on when to use them in your service, in the GOV.UK Design System.

Contact the team

GOV.UK Frontend is maintained by a team at Government Digital Service. If you want to know more about GOV.UK Frontend, please email the Design System team or get in touch with them on Slack.

Quick start

There are 2 ways to start using GOV.UK Frontend in your app.

Once installed, you will be able to use the code from the examples in the GOV.UK Design System in your service.

1. Install with npm (recommended)

We recommend installing GOV.UK Frontend using node package manager (npm).

2. Install by using compiled files

You can also download the compiled and minified assets (CSS, JavaScript) from GitHub.

Importing styles

You need to import the GOV.UK Frontend styles into the main Sass file in your project. You should place the below code before your own Sass rules (or Sass imports) if you want to override GOV.UK Frontend with your own styles.

To import add the below to your Sass file:

@import "node_modules/govuk-frontend/dist/govuk/all";

More details on importing styles

Importing JavaScript

Some of the JavaScript included in GOV.UK Frontend improves the usability and accessibility of the components. You should make sure that you are importing and initialising JavaScript in your application. This will ensure all users can use it successfully.

You can include JavaScript for all components by copying both govuk-frontend.min.js and govuk-frontend.min.js.map from node_modules/govuk-frontend/dist/govuk/ into your application and referencing the JavaScript directly:

<script type="module" src="{path-to-javascript}/govuk-frontend.min.js"></script>

Next you need to import and initialise GOV.UK Frontend by adding:

<script type="module">
  import { initAll } from '{path-to-javascript}/govuk-frontend.min.js'
  initAll()
</script>

More details on importing JavaScript and advanced options

Importing assets

In order to import GOV.UK Frontend images and fonts to your project, you should configure your application to reference or copy the relevant GOV.UK Frontend assets.

More details on importing assets

Getting updates

To be notified when there’s a new release, you can either:

• watch the govuk-frontend Github repository
• join the #govuk-design-system channel on cross-government Slack

Find out how to update with npm.

Licence

Unless stated otherwise, the codebase is released under the MIT License. This covers both the codebase and any sample code in the documentation. The documentation is © Crown copyright and available under the terms of the Open Government 3.0 licence.

Contribution guidelines

If you want to help us build GOV.UK Frontend, view our contribution guidelines.

Changelog

v5.11.1 (Fix release)

Fixes

We've made fixes to GOV.UK Frontend in the following pull requests:

• #6047: Fix text within the inverse Service navigation variant not appearing in white – thanks to @peteryates for reporting this issue
• #6084: Output hexadecimal colours for govuk-shade and govuk-tint