


What are the challenges and solutions for maintaining CSS in large-scale applications?
Jun 14, 2025 am 12:15 AMThe key to maintaining CSS for large applications is organizational structure, naming specifications, and tool aids. First, adopt component management, split styles and implement local scopes to avoid conflicts; second, unify naming specifications such as BEM, SMACSS or namespace prefixes to improve maintainability; third, use PostCSS, stylelint and other tools to achieve automated processing and code quality control. Although these methods are not complicated, they require teamwork and continuous maintenance to be effectively implemented.
Maintaining CSS for large applications is indeed a challenge. As the scale of the project grows, style sheets are prone to become bloated and chaotic, resulting in a decline in development efficiency, difficulty in collaboration, and frequent style conflicts. To solve these problems, the key lies in organizational structure, naming specifications and tool assistance.
Component management: Split and reuse
In large projects, it is common to split CSS by components or modules. Each component has its own style file, which is not only easy to maintain but also easy to reuse.
- Use CSS-in-JS or modular solutions (such as CSS Modules) to achieve local scope and avoid style conflicts.
- Keep component styles independent and do not rely on global styles, so that they are more flexible when migrating or refactoring.
- Unify topic and variable management , such as centrally defining common attributes such as color and font through CSS variables or preprocessors (such as Sass and Less).
For example, the style of a button component should only affect the component itself, rather than pollute the global .btn
class.
Naming specification: clear and consistent
Naming confusion is one of the main reasons why CSS is difficult to maintain in large projects. If there is no unified naming rule, it is easy to have problems such as duplicate class names and style overwriting.
It is recommended to adopt some mature naming specifications, such as:
- BEM (Block Element Modifier) : Clear structure, suitable for multi-person collaboration.
- SMACSS or OOCSS : emphasizes the reusability and hierarchy of styles.
- Use namespace prefixes , such as
c-
for components,u-
for tool classes, andl-
for layout.
For example, BEM writing such as .user-profile__avatar--large
is more descriptive and easier to locate problems than .avatar
.
Toolchain support: automation and optimization
Manual maintenance of large-scale CSS is difficult to ensure quality, and modern tools can effectively improve efficiency and consistency.
- Use the PostCSS plug-in to automatically handle compatibility, compression, sorting and other tasks
- Introducing Linter (such as stylelint) to check for code style and potential errors
- Merge and compress CSS files in the construction process to reduce the number of requests
- Use Design Token tools to synchronize design systems and code styles
For example, adding stylelint checks to the CI process can prevent non-compliant styles from submitting to the main branch.
Basically that's it. Although the method is not complicated, it requires team consensus and continuous maintenance in real implementation.
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