whatisgithub

What is data?

wesbos/data — explained in plain English

Analysis updated 2026-07-29 · repo last pushed 2024-09-12

★ 4Audience · developerComplexity · 1/5StaleSetup · easy

In one sentence

A collection of JSON files describing web technologies like CSS properties and Web APIs, used by documentation sites and developer tools to look up details automatically. It is being deprecated in favor of w3c/webref.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((repo))
    What it does
      CSS property data
      Web API data
      Localization strings
    Use cases
      Build a linter
      Autocomplete features
      Documentation sites
    Tech stack
      JSON data files
      CSS parser support
    Audience
      Tool builders
      Documentation authors
    Status
      Deprecating soon
      Moving to webref

Code map

Detail Auto

An interactive map of this repo's files and how they connect — its source is parsed live in your browser. Click Visualize to build it.

filefunction / class

What do people build with it?

USE CASE 1

Build a CSS linter that validates properties against an authoritative list.

USE CASE 2

Create an autocomplete feature in a code editor using machine-readable CSS syntax data.

USE CASE 3

Power a documentation site that renders info boxes about web technologies from JSON.

USE CASE 4

Use Web API inheritance data to build tooling that understands how browser interfaces relate.

What is it built with?

JSON

How does it compare?

wesbos/data0labs-in/vision-link1038lab/agnes-ai
Stars444
Language—TypeScriptPython
Last pushed2024-09-12——
MaintenanceStale——
Setup difficultyeasymoderateeasy
Complexity1/53/52/5
Audiencedeveloperdevelopervibe coder

Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.

How do you get it running?

Difficulty · easy Time to first run · 5min

No setup needed beyond cloning the repo and reading the JSON files directly.

The explanation does not mention a license, so the usage terms are unknown.

So what is it?

This project is a structured data repository that feeds into MDN Web Docs, the popular reference site for web developers. It holds machine-readable information about web technologies like CSS properties and Web APIs, so that documentation pages, code editors, and other tools can look up details automatically instead of hardcoding them. The data is organized into folders by topic. The CSS folder contains JSON files describing things like at-rules, functions, properties, selectors, syntaxes, types, and units. The API folder describes how Web APIs inherit from each other. There is also a localization folder with translation strings. When a documentation page needs to render an information box about a CSS property, it pulls from these JSON files rather than relying on hand-written prose. Someone building a developer tool would use this. For example, the README mentions CSSTree, a CSS parser that relies on this data. If you were building a linter, an autocomplete feature, or a documentation site and needed an authoritative machine-readable list of every valid CSS property and its syntax, you would pull from this dataset. The README notes that this project is being deprecated in favor of a newer repository called w3c/webref. Anyone currently depending on it is encouraged to join the community discussion, and the maintainers are still accepting contributions in the meantime. There is also a separate companion project for browser compatibility data, which tracks which browsers support which features.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1
I want to build a CSS linter. Help me read the JSON files in the CSS properties folder of this repo to validate that a stylesheet only uses valid property names and syntaxes.
Prompt 2
I am building a code editor autocomplete feature. Show me how to import the CSS at-rules, functions, selectors, and units JSON data from this repo to power suggestions.
Prompt 3
I need to render an information box about a CSS property on my documentation site. How do I load and display the syntax and type data from this repo's JSON files?
Prompt 4
This repo is being deprecated in favor of w3c/webref. Help me understand what data overlaps between the two and write a migration plan for my tool that currently depends on this dataset.

Frequently asked questions

What is data?

A collection of JSON files describing web technologies like CSS properties and Web APIs, used by documentation sites and developer tools to look up details automatically. It is being deprecated in favor of w3c/webref.

Is data actively maintained?

Stale — no commits in 1-2 years (last push 2024-09-12).

What license does data use?

The explanation does not mention a license, so the usage terms are unknown.

How hard is data to set up?

Setup difficulty is rated easy, with roughly 5min to a first successful run.

Who is data for?

Mainly developer.

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