The Most Minimal Valid HTML Document

Published on October 2, 2023 (ā†» October 12, 2023), filed under (RSS feed for allĀ categories).

ā€”is still this:

<!DOCTYPE html><title>ā£</title>

(ā€œā£ā€ is a placeholder, as the title element canā€™t be empty. The code represents the valid/required-only HTML writing style, leaving out everything that can be left out.)

Why ā€œstillā€?

Because weā€™ve covered this many years ago, in 2008 (2014 gist, 2020 pen), though back then it was more about demonstrating universality and maximum reusability (contrasting heavily with templates like HTML5 Boilerplate) than promoting conformant minimalism.

Why repeat ā€œthisā€?

Because of ChatGPT, which canā€™t yet optimize HTML:

ā€œThe most minimal valid HTML document consists of just two required elements: ā€˜<!DOCTYPE html>ā€™ and ā€˜<html></html>ā€™.ā€

Figure: At least ChatGPT doesnā€™t say ā€œtags.ā€

Anyone checking their HTML on conformanceā€”validatingā€”would find the problems with the ChatGPT output and be able to deduce this most minimal document. But commercially, unfortunately, the data says that modern web development teams donā€™t focus on conformance *.

Thatā€™s why ā€œthisā€ seems worth repeating even more.

* Should they? For professionals, I absolutely think so.

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About Me

Jens Oliver Meiert, on September 30, 2021.

Iā€™m Jens, and Iā€™m an engineering lead and author. Iā€™ve worked as a technical lead for companies like Google and as an engineering manager for companies like Miro, Iā€™m close to W3C and WHATWG, and I write and review books for Oā€™Reilly and FrontendĀ Dogma.

With my current move to Spain, Iā€™m open to a new remote frontend leadership position. Feel free to review and refer my CV or LinkedInĀ profile.

I love trying things, not only in web development, but also in other areas like philosophy. Here on meiert.com I share some of my views andĀ experiences.