Here's a list of browser features the skills will tell your agent to use that are stable in Chrome but not supported by Firefox and Safari:
CSS @function
CSS calc-size()
CSS interpolate-size
CSS corner-shape
CSS border-shape
CSS flex-wrap: balance
CSS text-fit
CSS text-decoration-skip-spaces
CSS scroll-axis-lock
CSS scroll-target-group
CSS :target-current
CSS scroll-initial-target
CSS container scroll-state queries
scrollsnapchange event
scrollsnapchanging event
HTML focusgroup
Element.startViewTransition()
CSS view-transition-scope
Interest Invokers (interestfor)
LanguageModel (Prompt API)
LanguageDetector
Translator
Summarizer API
Window.fetchLater()
Speculation Rules API
Long Animation Frames API
VisibilityStateEntry
PerformanceSoftNavigation
InteractionContentfulPaint
Connection-Allowlist
CSS url() integrity() modifier
HTML meta name="text-scale"
HTML template for
HTML processing instructions
PasswordCredential
Promise-returning scroll methods
Web App Origin Migration
Local Network Access permissions
Request.targetAddressSpace
beforeinstallprompt event
To be fair, the skills also recommend ~11 features not supported by Chrome itself. And the project does seem concerned with compatibility: "Guiding models to use sensible, lightweight fallbacks."
That index page should link to plain markdown versions of all of the documents, and should be designed for search with grep to find the right answers.
That way I don't have to install anything at all - provided my agent has the ability to make HTTP requests I can tell it "Look for tips on https://googlechrome.github.io/modern-web-guidance-src/skill..." and it will fetch the index, then navigate to the most relevant documents - no MCP or npm or installation required at all.
show comments
advisedwang
Chrome already has too much power in the browser standards world. The last thing we need is everyone's LLMs to follow Chrome team's guidance on how to do web development. This road leads back to "To view this site, please view in [DOMINANT BROWSER]"
show comments
SoftTalker
Remeber, the features you don't use are the ones you don't have to support, or scramble to replace when they are deprecated.
Keep your effing websites simple.
phyzix5761
"Best Practices" are pretty much dead in the AI era. Pretty soon no one is going to read any of the code AI produces and that's a scary thought.
show comments
chalmovsky
Amazing! I'm just writing an article about how Alex Russell's quote about 'React being a legacy technology' got, unfortunately, totally ignored.
And now this just fell in my lap! Some of the arguments I wanted to make seem to be provide here. Didn't have a chance to take a proper look at it, but it looks very promising and nice!
Thank you!
internet2000
NO THANK YOU. Do not want my agents to contribute to the Chrome monoculture. Chrome is the new IE6.
show comments
cadamsdotcom
Planning to give this one a wide berth.
The more "legacy code" is getting written everyday the more the web will be forced to remain backwards compatible...
halflife
Finally.
This is exactly what I need when I need it. The amount of pull requests I reviewed with a mess of codes that can be switched to 2 lines of modern features made me write such tools myself, only half assed since I have other things to do.
codepoet80
I want the opposite of this. I want compatible code -- which is really hard, when there are so many eras to target. So far AI has done a great job of finding that sweet spot -- why would I want a tool that encourages the agent to write less compatible code?
fumar
I added this a few months ago and Claude Doctor has not removed it. It must be working and getting use.
gabrieledarrigo
That's pretty cool!
On the other hand, a bit sad: programming nowadays is just arranging a bunch of Markdown files, possibly generated by another bunch of models.
Not so exciting, in the end.
pyrolistical
I asked my agent to look at that list and only apply things that work on chrome, Firefox, safari iOS and safari macos
Came up with a good list for my project
dazhbog
I ask my agent to write ES5 as I am more comfortable with it.. i need to read and maintain that slop somehow..
SoftTalker
> We wanted receipts, so we invested heavily in eval infra to help us hill-climb, but also to identify when knowledge is common enough we can prune our guides.
Good god.
show comments
dallen33
Paul Irish?? There's a name I haven't though about in ages! I remember following you on Twitter and your website was full of amazing information. Hope you're doing well!
adzm
I find this very useful as a human as well
mococa
More Chromish on web? No thanks.
reedlaw
These skills look better than most, but running my code through the legacy scan only found two issues. So while I still think training beats skills, I'm sure this has its place, especially with weaker models.
show comments
zeroq
What's the best way to introduce this to a Gemini chat?
show comments
tonymet
I recommend saying "contemporary" or "suggested" for transient proposals like this. Having modern change every few years is ambiguous and cliche .
These concepts are new, so no one knows if they are any good. They're not modern -- who knows if they will even be put to use?
"contemporary", "proposed", "suggested", "compatible" are better fit. I wouldn't dare use "advanced" because many APIs and proposals actually regress earlier behavior.
j45
This is a great idea. I think while so much was being built out in the JavaScript ecosystem, awareness about the equivalent feature releases that were done to HTML, CSS, web components, and other technologies didn't keep pace.
Of course, it's not perfectly implemented the same in every browser, but that's nothing new.
PenguinRevolver
I use Firefox after Chrome decided to become a bit of a pain to use on my powerful computers. I was unsure how bias the skills were for Chrome exclusive features, so I decided to ask ChatGPT to analyse the repo. I liked the answer it gave, so here it is:
https://chatgpt.com/share/6af3712a-03cc-83eb-ad1f-66dd11c886...
cyanydeez
I treat all my code as some kind of stochastic machinery. So atleast one stage, I'd just tell an agent to go through and follow the guide.
But I'd not inject all this fluff into the wheels of the machine because it'd just take the "average" of these practices which would be just as useless.
Here's a list of browser features the skills will tell your agent to use that are stable in Chrome but not supported by Firefox and Safari:
To be fair, the skills also recommend ~11 features not supported by Chrome itself. And the project does seem concerned with compatibility: "Guiding models to use sensible, lightweight fallbacks."Distribution suggestion: in addition to the npm packages you have right now, set up GitHub Pages to publish a markdown index document of the skills at https://googlechrome.github.io/modern-web-guidance-src/skill... (currently a 404)
That index page should link to plain markdown versions of all of the documents, and should be designed for search with grep to find the right answers.
That way I don't have to install anything at all - provided my agent has the ability to make HTTP requests I can tell it "Look for tips on https://googlechrome.github.io/modern-web-guidance-src/skill..." and it will fetch the index, then navigate to the most relevant documents - no MCP or npm or installation required at all.
Chrome already has too much power in the browser standards world. The last thing we need is everyone's LLMs to follow Chrome team's guidance on how to do web development. This road leads back to "To view this site, please view in [DOMINANT BROWSER]"
Remeber, the features you don't use are the ones you don't have to support, or scramble to replace when they are deprecated.
Keep your effing websites simple.
"Best Practices" are pretty much dead in the AI era. Pretty soon no one is going to read any of the code AI produces and that's a scary thought.
Amazing! I'm just writing an article about how Alex Russell's quote about 'React being a legacy technology' got, unfortunately, totally ignored.
And now this just fell in my lap! Some of the arguments I wanted to make seem to be provide here. Didn't have a chance to take a proper look at it, but it looks very promising and nice!
Thank you!
NO THANK YOU. Do not want my agents to contribute to the Chrome monoculture. Chrome is the new IE6.
Planning to give this one a wide berth.
The more "legacy code" is getting written everyday the more the web will be forced to remain backwards compatible...
Finally.
This is exactly what I need when I need it. The amount of pull requests I reviewed with a mess of codes that can be switched to 2 lines of modern features made me write such tools myself, only half assed since I have other things to do.
I want the opposite of this. I want compatible code -- which is really hard, when there are so many eras to target. So far AI has done a great job of finding that sweet spot -- why would I want a tool that encourages the agent to write less compatible code?
I added this a few months ago and Claude Doctor has not removed it. It must be working and getting use.
That's pretty cool!
On the other hand, a bit sad: programming nowadays is just arranging a bunch of Markdown files, possibly generated by another bunch of models.
Not so exciting, in the end.
I asked my agent to look at that list and only apply things that work on chrome, Firefox, safari iOS and safari macos
Came up with a good list for my project
I ask my agent to write ES5 as I am more comfortable with it.. i need to read and maintain that slop somehow..
> We wanted receipts, so we invested heavily in eval infra to help us hill-climb, but also to identify when knowledge is common enough we can prune our guides.
Good god.
Paul Irish?? There's a name I haven't though about in ages! I remember following you on Twitter and your website was full of amazing information. Hope you're doing well!
I find this very useful as a human as well
More Chromish on web? No thanks.
These skills look better than most, but running my code through the legacy scan only found two issues. So while I still think training beats skills, I'm sure this has its place, especially with weaker models.
What's the best way to introduce this to a Gemini chat?
I recommend saying "contemporary" or "suggested" for transient proposals like this. Having modern change every few years is ambiguous and cliche .
These concepts are new, so no one knows if they are any good. They're not modern -- who knows if they will even be put to use?
"contemporary", "proposed", "suggested", "compatible" are better fit. I wouldn't dare use "advanced" because many APIs and proposals actually regress earlier behavior.
This is a great idea. I think while so much was being built out in the JavaScript ecosystem, awareness about the equivalent feature releases that were done to HTML, CSS, web components, and other technologies didn't keep pace.
Of course, it's not perfectly implemented the same in every browser, but that's nothing new.
I use Firefox after Chrome decided to become a bit of a pain to use on my powerful computers. I was unsure how bias the skills were for Chrome exclusive features, so I decided to ask ChatGPT to analyse the repo. I liked the answer it gave, so here it is: https://chatgpt.com/share/6af3712a-03cc-83eb-ad1f-66dd11c886...
I treat all my code as some kind of stochastic machinery. So atleast one stage, I'd just tell an agent to go through and follow the guide.
But I'd not inject all this fluff into the wheels of the machine because it'd just take the "average" of these practices which would be just as useless.