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title: General Conventions
---

Disclaimer: This is a highly opinionated project and set of files and conventions. If you don't like any of those: feel free to change them for your project or fork the hell out of this repository. Be sure to update documentation if you do so.

## Language

Documentation should be written in English, since it is the most accessible language for developers worldwide, even if the page/content itself is in other languages. Try to use simple language and provide examples wherever applicable.

## Spaces FTW!

If your editor of choice supports [editorconfig](http://editorconfig.org), you should already be fine, this project provides an .editorconfig-file that sets all conventions. If not: 2 Spaces for *everything*, UTF-8 everything, Unix-Style linebreaks, no trailing spaces except for Markdown and text-files.

## Linting

The JavaScript-, HTML- and Sass-linters will be enabled by default with the settings from above, so if you try to move away from those conventions: you will be warned :) The linters will try to enforce a specific coding style regarding whitespace, naming stuff, usage of variables etc. to make your code consistent, so please try to stick to it. You can always customize the linters: [read more about that here](docs/development/linting).

## Filenames

Files should always be in lowercase, use dashes where applicable. No underscores, unless you want to exclude files from the styleguide, see [Naming and referencing in Fractal](https://fractal.build/guide/core-concepts/naming).

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For more details on language-specific coding conventions or coding styles, have a look here:

- [Best Practices](docs/development/best-practices)
- [HTML and Nunjucks](docs/development/sass)
- [CSS and Sass](docs/development/sass)
- [JavaScript](docs/development/javascript)