Mod Style is a design system package for use on Modernize's S3 microsites. Its purpose is to streamline development by providing flexible, reusable, styled components.

Current examples:

a predefined list of sass color variables
media breakpoints
buttons and button groups
input fields
custom icon fonts
fonts and typography styles
logos optimized for both desktop and mobile devices
progress bars
modals

The functionality of the Mod Style package is built on top of bootstrap-sass, which is a sass-powered version of Bootstrap 3. (bootstrap-sass will be referenced throughout this guide as simply Bootstrap to avoid confusion).

The elements found within Mod Style were developed based on the Mod Style sketch file that is maintained by our designers. The current version can be found here: Mod Style Guide, alongside a changelog, a list of archived versions, and versions that are currently under construction. If this link is not accessible or has not been shared with you, please let someone on the engineering team know.

File Structure of Mod Style

src/ fonts/ modstyle-icons/ - icon font folder

modicons-basic/
modicons-fill/
modicons-stroke/

images/

modstyle-logos/ - Logo images folder

styles/

base/ - minimum core css files used by every page

_animations
_breakpoint-mixins
_colors
_fonts
_image-mixins
_logos
_reset
index

components/

_buttons
_inputs
_nav
_progress-bars
index

icons/

_basics
_fill
_stroke
index

vendor/

_bootstrap-base - for importing minimum core bootstrap modules for all pages
_custom-variables - for overwriting bootstraps variables with our own styles

.editorconfig - rules for code editors based on company's code guidelines

.sass-lint.yml - configuration for SASS/SCSS linter

package-lock.json - lock file for package.json; makes sure that the same versions of Node modules are installed across env

package.json - Node modules used in mod-site

Installation

For Projects Using Mod Site:

Ensure that the latest version of Mod Style is a dependency of your project and is listed inside your package.json.
Ensure that the latest version of Mod Site (currently 4.0.*) is a dependency of your project and is listed inside your package.json.

Mod Site ensures that:

Bootstrap is included as a dependency in your project.
Gulp handles proper compiling of src files from the Mod Style package into your project.

Create a folder named vendor inside the src/styles/ folder of your project.
Inside the vendor folder, create a file called bootstrap-base.scss.
Inside this file you will import the bootstrap-base.scss file from Mod Style.
Note: If you need any additional bootstrap components (see below for full list of available components), you will import them from Bootstrap into this file.
Add this base file into the head section of your html file using a link tag.
Your custom css for your project should be listed as a link tag AFTER the bootstrap-base file.
Import whatever components you will need from Mod Style into the top of your project's index.scss file.

At the very least you will need to import the base/index.scss file.
If you are using icons you will need to import the correct icon type scss file as well.

Example: Properly Including Link Tags in HTML File

    <!DOCTYPE html>
  <html lang="en">
    <head>
      <link target="_blank" href="/styles/vendor/bootstrap-base.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
      <link target="_blank" href="/styles/home.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
    </head>
    <body>

Example: Importing Bootstrap Files from Mod Style

    @import '../../../node_modules/mod-style-bootstrap/src/styles/vendor/bootstrap-base';

    @import '../../../node_modules/mod-style-bootstrap/src/styles/base/index';
    @import '../../../node_modules/mod-style-bootstrap/src/styles/components/buttons';
    @import '../../../node_modules/mod-style-bootstrap/src/styles/components/inputs';

Example: Importing Components from Bootstrap

    @import '../../../node_modules/bootstrap-sass/assets/stylesheets/bootstrap/code';

For Projects Not Using Mod Site:

Currently this functionality is not supported.

How Bootstrap Works for Us

For more information on the version of Bootstrap we are currently using please see Bootstrap 3 - Using Sass .

Mod Style Bootstrap Base

The Mod Style bootstrap-base.scss file serves to pull in the minimum components necessary from Bootstrap.

The components included in this file are:

custom-variables - Note: see custom variables section below for more info
variables
mixins
normalize
scaffolding
component-animations
grid
forms
buttons
input-groups
modals - Note: some javascript files necessary for this to work, see bootstrap modals for more info
utilities
responsive-utilities

List of all other available Bootstrap components

For more about available components within Bootstrap 3 see Bootstrap 3 Components.

Another version of this list can be found inside the Bootstrap repo.

Mod Style Custom Variables {#stylesvendorcustom-variables.scss}

Every sass variable in Bootstrap includes the !default flag, allowing you to override the variable’s default value in your own sass files without modifying Bootstrap’s source code.

For that reason Mod Style contains a copy of Bootstrap's variable.scss file located in styles/vendor/custom-variables.scss. In this file the !default flag has been removed from all variables so that it won’t be re-assigned by the default values in Bootstrap. All variables that are in use by our pages have been over written with our own custom styles.

This file is included at the top of the bootstrap-base.scss file because it must come before you import Bootstrap’s Sass variables and other files for the override to work properly.

Developing and Testing Locally

To test and develop locally you will need to work within two separate repositories:

modify.modernize.com

Please ensure that you have cloned the modify.modernize.com repo and you have pulled the most recent changes from master.
Please make sure to branch from master using a branch name that corresponds with a JIRA ticket, for ease of tracking changes.
Symlink your local copy of mod-style with the modify project:

Navigate to the root directory of your local copy of mod-style and run npm link #.
Navigate to the root directory of the modify project and run npm link mod-style-bootstrap # in your terminal.
This link allows you to see changes made within Mod Style.
Note: when you make and save changes within Mod Style you will then have to do cmnd + s within a modify scss file for you changes to be picked up.
Note: that the npm package name for the mod-style repo is mod-style-bootstrap, not mod-style.

Run gulp serve from the root directory of the modify project.
Make necessary changes. If new features or elements are being added (i.e icons, form-elements etc.) please be sure to update the modify project to reflect these changes.
Be sure to unlink mod-style before pushing your changes by running npm unlink mod-style-bootstrap # in the root directory of the modify project.
Create a PR against the master branch of modify.modernize.com.
Once your PR is approved merge your feature branch into qa. Note: any changes made in mod-style will have to be published before deploying this repo to qa.
Once qa approves you can merge your changes to master.

mod-style

Please ensure that you have cloned the mod-style repo and you have pulled the most recent changes from master.
Please make sure to branch from master using a branch name that corresponds with the same JIRA ticket you used above, for ease of tracking changes.
Make necessary changes. If new features or elements are being added (i.e icons, form-elements etc.) please be sure to update the modify.modernize.com ui to reflect these changes.
Update the version number in the package.json.
If this update coincides with an update to the design system sketch file, please be sure to update sketchFileVersion in the package.json as well, to match the version number named on the sketch file.
Create a PR against master branch.
Once your PR is approved merge your mod-style feature branch directly to master (Note: There is no qa branch for mod-style).
In your terminal, from the root directory of mod-style, on the master branch run npm publish.
Depending on the version number you are releasing, the change will take effect on pages only once the page has been re-deployed to production by qa. If it's a major version increase, pages will have to manually opt in to the change.

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Package last updated on 15 Jan 2026

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mod-style-bootstrap

About The Mod Style Design System