HTML Template

HTML Template is a modern, accessibility-focused HTML starter for landing pages, documentation sites, and small web apps. It gives you a clean, semantic foundation with design tokens, responsive layout, and zero legacy dependencies.

View on GitHub Clone with Git

Highlights of HTML Template

⭐ Performance-minded by default

Lean markup, small CSS, and vanilla JavaScript help you ship fast, responsive sites without unnecessary bloat.

⭐ Accessibility-first structure

Semantic HTML5 landmarks, skip links, keyboard-friendly navigation, and focus styles built in from the start.

⭐ Modern CSS layout

Uses Flexbox and CSS Grid for layout, with sensible defaults for content, sidebars, hero sections, and cards.

⭐ Design tokens & theming

Colors, typography, spacing, radii, and shadows are controlled through CSS custom properties for easy theming.

⭐ Light & dark mode aware

Respects prefers-color-scheme out of the box so your site feels at home in light and dark themes.

⭐ Framework-agnostic

Drop the template into any stack or static site generator. It’s plain HTML, CSS, and JS—no framework lock-in.

Get HTML Template

Clone the repository, open it in your editor, and start building right away. Optional Sass tooling is included if you want it. 

git clone https://github.com/brandonhimpfen/html-template.git

Inside the project, you can use npm scripts to build CSS and run a local dev server: 

npm install
npm run watch   # watch Sass
npm run serve   # simple dev server
Open GitHub

Built for modern front-ends

Use HTML Template as a standalone starter or as the base layer for React, Vue, Svelte, Astro, or any static site builder. The template focuses on structure, accessibility, and layout—so you can focus on your content and components.

Features and What You Get

  • Free, open source code (MIT licensed)
  • Semantic HTML5 structure with accessible landmarks
  • A default favicon file
  • Sample index.html and about.html pages
  • Sample .htaccess file for Apache-style hosting
  • humans.txt — list the people and tools behind your site
  • robots.txt — basic rules for search engine crawlers
  • 404 and 500 error page templates
  • Browser configuration reference via browserconfig.xml
  • Cross-domain policy file (crossdomain.xml) for legacy clients
  • Blank directory for your images
  • Example sitemap XML file (referenced in robots.txt) to help search engines discover your pages
  • Modern CSS powered by custom properties (design tokens) and responsive layout with Flexbox and Grid
  • Vanilla JavaScript for navigation toggles and smooth scrolling (no jQuery or Modernizr required)
  • Sass/SCSS starter with variables and partials for structuring your styles

Changelog

VersionDateComments
2.0.009 December 2025Removed legacy dependencies. Added design tokens, light/dark mode support an updated HTML structure.
1.4.014 January 2015Combined base and page CSS files. Add SASS/SCSS support.
1.3.024 June 2014Add 403 and 500 error pages. Add humans <head> link.
1.2.019 February 2014Add browserconfig.xml, crossdomain.xml, humans.txt and more.
1.1.007 December 2013Minor update to index.html and CSS files. Add .htaccess example.
1.0.019 April 2013Initial commit of files.