UI Suite Monthly #15 - Major Progress Toward Alpha One and GitLab CI Integration

Overall Summary

We're at one of the most critical moments in our UI Suite journey. This month's meeting showcased significant progress on UI Patterns 2.0 as we approach the Alpha One milestone, alongside major infrastructure improvements with GitLab CI integration. Our design system implementation continues to evolve, with enhanced compatibility testing and strategic decisions about our ecosystem's future.

The meeting highlighted our commitment to preserving and improving the Drupal site experience while building toward Single Directory Components (SDC) compatibility. With UI Patterns 2.0 nearing its first alpha release, we're focused on delivering a stable API that the entire ecosystem can build upon.

Key Topics Discussed

GitLab CI Integration Success

Florent has completed massive work enabling GitLab CI tests across our module ecosystem. This infrastructure upgrade includes switching from traditional CI to GitLab CI for main modules, with UI Patterns teams able to enable it on their branches when ready. The work also involved coding standards improvements and standardization across repositories. Beyond our ecosystem, contributions were made to Drupal core's GitLab CI templates, including support for .stylelintignore files that will benefit the entire community.

UI Patterns 2.0 Architecture Deep Dive

Our progress toward Alpha One represents a fundamental shift in how we approach component management. The API architecture performs three distinct jobs: altering ATC component definitions, providing form building experiences, and generating automatic markup rendering. We've made substantial progress on the legacy layer, views and field formatters, with form builder and source plugin work ready for imminent merging. The system includes stream wrappers, reference solvers, compatibility checkers, and plugin types that work together to create altered component definitions with enhanced prop type information and contextual data.

SDC Compatibility Strategy

We're building UI Patterns 2.0 to be fully compatible with Drupal core's Single Directory Components. Our approach involves either overriding the component plugin manager (which will be possible with an upcoming core patch removing the final keyword) or implementing more elegant solutions like service decorators. We're working closely with the SDC team to ensure our ecosystem doesn't diverge from core standards, testing compatibility with six existing SDC themes and aiming for 90% prop compatibility coverage.

Ecosystem Testing and Compatibility

Our compatibility testing spans major themes including Bootstrap 5, USWDS 3, DSFR, Material Design, and Protocol. We've achieved excellent results with only minor errors per theme, demonstrating our system's robustness. For teams wanting to ensure their themes are UI Patterns 2.0 ready from day one, we're offering private compatibility testing and optimization recommendations.

Module Ecosystem Updates

Component blocks released version 1.8 with improvements to link plugin definitions and runtime context sharing. UI Styles continues active development with entity status module integration, though we're managing some detection issues carefully. The DSFR theme approaches Beta 6 release with only two remaining issues, preparing for the final compatibility break announced six months ago. Material 3 theme development is seeking contributors, representing an exciting opportunity to work with web components technology.

Key Action Points

Immediate Development Priorities

• Complete Alpha One scope: We have approximately 10-12 tickets remaining in our issue queue before tagging Alpha One. This release will provide the first stable API attempt, potentially our last chance to establish the final stable interface that all ecosystem modules can build upon.
• Finalize form builder and source plugin merging: These components are ready and will be integrated within days, completing major architectural pieces.
• Address remaining compatibility issues: Investigate the page.html.twig compatibility problem in DSFR theme, particularly the fatal error when using header components with slots.

Testing and Quality Assurance

Teams should prepare for UI Patterns 2.0 compatibility by sharing their codebases for testing. We're committed to maintaining confidentiality while ensuring maximum compatibility coverage. Our goal remains 90% prop compatibility across all themes available on Drupal.org.

Community Engagement and Contribution

Several opportunities exist for community involvement: DSFR theme needs help completing Beta 7 (only six issues remaining), Material 3 theme development offers cutting-edge web component experience, and Zurb Foundation theme maintenance could benefit from new maintainership given its popularity.

Infrastructure and Documentation

Following Alpha One release, we'll provide comprehensive demos and explanations to clarify the three-schema architecture and scope. The community video content continues growing, with our one-hour strategy and philosophy discussion receiving positive engagement alongside operational updates.

Upcoming Deadlines / Releases

Join our community on Slack and don't miss the comprehensive strategy discussion video on our channel. We're at a pivotal moment in UI Suite's evolution, and community participation is more valuable than ever.