Pattern Libraries (or Style Guides) are a helpful tool in developing websites. Read more about Creating Style Guides at this A List Apart article.

Maintaining a static Pattern Library (in HTML/CSS) is hard work and errorprone. There are, however, various tools that help us generate a dynamic Pattern Library or 'Living Style Guide'.

This page aims to list these tools. If you know of other tools or have other feedback, please let me know or submit a PR. Thanks, David Hund @valuedstandards

NOTE: This should list generators only: no Bootstrap, Foundation, Topcoat, etc. but tools to generate a Living Style Guide.

Table of Contents

• PHP
• Python / Flask
• Ruby / RAILS
• ReactJS
• NodeJS
• Jekyll
• CSS (parsing CSS source)
• Grunt / Gulp Tasks
• Online Services
• Other
• Articles

Generating styled markup from a folder of markup snippets.

Demo | Source | PHP, HTML patterns

Pattern Lab is a collection of tools to help you create atomic design systems.

Demo | Source | PHP, Atomic, Static Generator, Grunt Task

Provides a visual testing page for Drupal themes.

Demo | Source | PHP, Drupal

A starting point for crafting living style guides.

Demo | Source | PHP, HTML patterns

A starting point for crafting living style guides for Bootstrap-based projects.

Demo | Source | PHP, HTML patterns, Bootstrap

An initial directory setup, style guide and pattern primer. Intended as a starting point for […] projects…

Demo | Source | PHP, HTML patterns

Atomic Docs is a front end style guide generator and Scss/Less/Stylus partial manager. Atomic Docs is built in PHP and Sass.

Demo | Source | PHP, Atomic, HTML patterns

A living style guide for your Flask application.

Demo | Source | Documentation | Python, Flask, KSS

Source | Ruby, HTML patterns

The easiest way to create front-end style guides with Sass and Compass

Demo | Open source demo | Source | Ruby, Markdown, Sass

Source | Ruby, Rails, Components

Demo | Source | React, components

Create a live style guide that can easily expand into a documentation hub. Store all kinds of documentation, from design rationale, to CSS, JS, and API docs.

Demo | Source | NodeJS, Markdown, Custom Tags, Static Site Generator

Front-end documentation engine

Demo | Source | NodeJS, Grunt, RequireJS, LESS

A free app that gives you an interface to store and manage your front-end patterns.

Demo | Source | NodeJS, Gulp, Angular, Markdown/YAML

Yeoman Generator for Style Prototypes

Source | NodeJS, Yeoman, Ruby, Git

Source | NodeJS, HTML patterns

Source | NodeJS, Static Site Generator, Mustache patterns

patternplate is a platform designed to help you create and maintain component libraries.

Source | NodeJS, React (jsx) patterns, LESS

A tool for building website UI toolkits

Source | NodeJS, Gulp, Markdown, Static Site Generator, Mustache patterns

Simple styleguide framework

Demo | Source | NodeJS, HTML & Handlebars patterns

A tool to help you build and document web component libraries and then integrate them into your projects.

Source | NodeJS, Markdown

A lightweight, non-opinionated, pattern library designed to be included with any web project.

Source | NodeJS, CLI, Markdown

Using Jekyll Styleguide you can generate a Pattern Library and add patterns by simply adding new files to the _posts folder. Includes a GulpJS workflow that compiles Sass auto-builds Jekyll and refreshes your browser :)

Demo | Source | Jekyll, Static Site Generator, Markdown, Gulp

Source | Jekyll, Static Site Generator

These tools define a documenting syntax for CSS. You would e.g. write your components' HTML in a comment above the component's CSS and the tool would generate a Styleguide from it.

KSS is intended to help automate the creation of a living styleguide. A styleguide serves as a place to publish KSS documentation and visualize different states of UI elements defined in your CSS.

Demo | Source | *CSS, Ruby

Demo | Source | *CSS, NodeJS, KSS

Source | *CSS, Ruby, MiddleMan, KSS

Source | *CSS, Ruby, MiddleMan, KSS

StyleDocco generates documentation and style guide documents from your stylesheets.

Source | *CSS, NodeJS, Markdown

DSS, Documented Style Sheets, is a comment styleguide and parser for CSS, LESS, STYLUS, SASS and SCSS code.

Source | *CSS, NodeJS, Grunt, Sublime Plugin

Hologram is a Ruby gem that parses comments in your CSS and turns them into a beautiful style guide.

Demo | *CSS, Ruby, Markdown

Nucleus is a living style guide generator for atomic css based components.

Demo | *SCSS, NodeJS

Generate a styleguide from your CSS, by adding YAML data in the comments. It generates a self-contained html file. Works great for component based CSS.

Demo | Source | *CSS, NodeJS, Coffeescript, YAML

YSS is styleguide framework written in PHP and jQuery. It display nicely all your commented CSS […]

Demo | Source | CSS, PHP, jQuery, Markdown

PostCSS plugin. CSS comments will be parsed through Markdown and displayed in a generated HTML document.

Source | CSS, NodeJS, GruntJS, GulpJS, Markdown

PostCSS plugin. Easily create and maintain style guides with CSS comments using Markdown.

Demo | Source | CSS, PostCSS, NodeJS, GruntJS, GulpJS, Markdown

Aigis is a Node.js package that parses comments in your CSS and auto-generate a style guide. It is similar to Hologram, like a Node.js implementation of Hologram.

Demo | Source | CSS, NodeJS, GulpJS, Markdown

Styledown is made to work in most web development setups. It doesn't favor any framework or language or any preprocessor.

Demo | Source CSS, NodeJS, Markdown

CLI, gulp/grunt task to create style guides from stylesheets using KSS notation.

Demo | Source | GruntJS, GulpJS, *CSS, NodeJS, KSS, Gulp, Grunt

Grunt plugin for building living styleguides with Handlebars from Markdown comments in CSS, SASS and LESS files.

Source | GruntJS, Handlebars, Markdown

Build and Document Your Interface. Then Share the Code.

Source | GruntJS, Markdown

Source | GruntJS, HTML patterns

These services provide a web-app to generate your styleguide. Some require an account

You can create design, brand or UI guidelines with the Frontify Style Guide editor. Use existing templates or start from scratch by choosing from over 20 smart blocks (like colors, media, typography, UI elements, & more) - For Non-coders and coders =)

Service | Service, Login, Free (“Powered by Frontify”), Commercial ($9/$49)

Service | Service, Login, (Commercial)

Stylify Me extracts the styles of a given website and displays them in a styleguide

Demo | Extract, Example

Yeoman Generator for Style Prototypes

Yeoman Generator | Templates, Sass, Compass, Yeoman, Grunt,Bower, Styletiles

• 24ways.org/2011/front-end-style-guides/
• styletil.es/
• maban.co.uk/66/
• gimmebar.com/.../front-end-styleguides-and-pattern-libraries
• alistapart.com/article/creating-style-guides
• patternlab.io/resources.html
• kippt.com/asiermartinez/style-guides
• bradfrost.github.io/this-is-responsive/
• docs.google.com/spreadsheet/
• medium.com/daily-ui-ux-inspirations/
• speakerdeck.com/.../style-guide-driven-development
• speakerdeck.com/.../improving-your-responsive-workflow-with-style-guides
• paulrobertlloyd.com/about/styleguide/