CSS Primer For the AI Era - foundationsA vocabulary for shaping interfaces with AI
https://icontemp.com/wiki/cssprimer/
2026-09-23T00:36:22+00:00CSS Primer For the AI Era
https://icontemp.com/wiki/cssprimer/
https://icontemp.com/wiki/cssprimer/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=wiki:logo.pngtext/html2026-04-25T14:30:03+00:00Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com)2- The Cascade — How CSS Decides
https://icontemp.com/wiki/cssprimer/doku.php?id=foundations:css_cascade_for_the_ai_era&rev=1777127403&do=diff
2- The Cascade — How CSS Decides
— the quiet algorithm behind every style
CSS looks simple on the surface:
we write a rule,
the browser applies it.
But underneath that simplicity
is a small, steady →decision‑making process
called the 'text/html2026-04-25T14:29:14+00:00Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com)6- Context — Why CSS Is Never Absolute
https://icontemp.com/wiki/cssprimer/doku.php?id=foundations:css_context_for_the_ai_era&rev=1777127354&do=diff
6- Context — Why CSS Is Never Absolute
—Part of CSS Primer for the AI Era — Foundations
CSS is often described as unpredictable.
But unpredictability isn’t the truth — context is.
Every CSS property, every layout decision, every computed valuetext/html2026-05-20T14:52:21+00:00Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com)0- HTML Semantics — The Structure CSS Depends On
https://icontemp.com/wiki/cssprimer/doku.php?id=foundations:css_html_semantics_a_primer_for_the_ai_era&rev=1779288741&do=diff
0- HTML Semantics — The Structure CSS Depends On
—Part of CSS Primer for the AI Era — Foundations
CSS never starts from nothing.
It always begins with a
'document that already has meaning'.
That meaning lives in HTML.
If we think of CSS as the way things look and behavetext/html2026-04-25T14:29:39+00:00Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com)4- Inheritance — How Styles Pass Down the Tree
https://icontemp.com/wiki/cssprimer/doku.php?id=foundations:css_inheritance_for_the_ai_era&rev=1777127379&do=diff
4- Inheritance — How Styles Pass Down the Tree
—Part of CSS Primer for the AI Era — Foundations
CSS has a quiet 'habit':
When something is true for a parent,
it often becomes true for its children.
The browser doesn’t apply CSS styles in isolation.text/html2026-04-25T14:29:26+00:00Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com)5- Normal Flow — How Elements Arrange Themselves
https://icontemp.com/wiki/cssprimer/doku.php?id=foundations:css_normal_flow_for_the_ai_era&rev=1777127366&do=diff
5- Normal Flow — How Elements Arrange Themselves
—Part of CSS Primer for the AI Era — Foundations
Normal flow is the quiet baseline of CSS —
the way elements arrange themselves
when we don’t interfere.
It's that 'default' that system browsers usetext/html2026-04-25T14:29:50+00:00Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com)3- Specificity — The Weight of a Selector
https://icontemp.com/wiki/cssprimer/doku.php?id=foundations:css_specificity_for_the_ai_era&rev=1777127390&do=diff
3- Specificity — The Weight of a Selector
— how CSS decides which voice speaks louder
If the cascade is CSS’s referee,
specificity is its volume knob.
Every selector has a certain “weight”,
and when two rules want to style the same element,text/html2026-04-25T14:30:14+00:00Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com)1- How CSS Thinks
https://icontemp.com/wiki/cssprimer/doku.php?id=foundations:how_css_thinks&rev=1777127414&do=diff
1- How CSS Thinks
— the quiet mental model behind everything
CSS looks like a list of rules, but underneath the syntax there is a simple idea:
CSS is a conversation
between the browser and the document
about how things should appear.
It’s not a programming language.text/html2026-04-17T15:38:31+00:00Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com)Foundations
https://icontemp.com/wiki/cssprimer/doku.php?id=foundations:start&rev=1776440311&do=diff
Foundations
Please sort A-Z for intended reading sequence.