JavaScript coding guidelines

Write JavaScript according to the Airbnb Styleguide, with some exceptions:

  • Use soft-tabs with a four space indent. Spaces are the only way to guarantee code renders the same in any person’s environment.
  • We accept snake_case in object properties, such as ajaxResponse.page_title, however camelCase or UPPER_CASE should be used everywhere else.

Linting and formatting code

Wagtail provides some tooling configuration to help check your code meets the styleguide. You’ll need node.js and npm on your development machine. Ensure project dependencies are installed by running npm install

Linting code

$ npm run lint:js

This will lint all the JS in the wagtail project, excluding vendor files and compiled libraries.

Some of the modals are generated via server-side scripts. These include template tags that upset the linter, so modal workflow JavaScript is excluded from the linter.

Formatting code

$ npm run format:js

This will perform safe edits to conform your JS code to the styleguide. It won’t touch the line-length, or convert quotemarks from double to single.

Run the linter after you’ve formatted the code to see what manual fixes you need to make to the codebase.

Changing the linter configuration

Under the hood, the tasks use the JavaScript Code Style library.

To edit the settings for ignored files, or to change the linting rules, edit the .jscsrc file in the wagtail project root.

A complete list of the possible linting rules can be found here: JSCS Rules