Declarative CSS Modules - should they initiate a fetch?

[KurtCattiSchmidt]

What is the issue with the HTML Standard?

This topic is for discussion of #10673, which is a Stage 1 proposal.

The current explainer uses URL-like module syntax to define a module identifier. The TPAC breakout session had some discussion around initiating a network fetch for the given module name if one hasn't been defined declaratively.

Specifically, this would mean that specifying the following markup:

<my-element> 
  <template shadowrootmode="open" adoptedstylesheets="/foo.css"> 
    <!-- ... --> 
  </template> 
</my-element>

without an existing definition of foo.css in the module graph would:

1. Initiate a fetch for foo.css
2. Validate the MIME type of "foo.css" returned
3. Upon load complete of the fetch from step 1
   1. Add "foo.css" to the module graph
   2. Parse the content of foo.css as a CSS style sheet
   3. Apply the contents of "foo.css" from the prior step as adoptedStyleSheets in the provided <template> element

This would essentially be a markup-equivalent of https://web.dev/articles/css-module-scripts

Is this something that is desired by developers? If so, there are a number of follow-up issues to clarify, but I want to determine fetching in general makes sense with this feature.

[domenic]

This seems related to my objections in #10673. Ideally you would not be using the module map infrastructure at all, and instead using pure URLs. Then #fragment URLs could reference inline style sheets identified by id="".

[robglidden]

Fetching seems to have the benefit that:

<my-element> 
  <template shadowrootmode="open" adoptedstylesheets="/foo.css"> 
    <!-- ... --> 
  </template> 
</my-element>

Would behave like:

<my-element> 
  <template shadowrootmode="open"> 
	<link rel="stylesheet" href="/foo.css" />
    <!-- ... --> 
  </template> 
</my-element>

In that /foo.css would only be network-loaded once, even if referenced in multiple shadow roots (assuming that is how link rel in a declarative shadow DOM always works?).

The difference would be that under the hood the attribute adoptedstylesheets would become adoptedStyleSheets on the shadow root, rather than a link rel.

[robglidden]

What if we assumed that adoptedstylesheets="/foo.css" was instead a reference to a genuine, regular (CSS) module, and that modules in general were extended to also support inline modules, which I take as potentially implied by this comment?

<my-element> 
  <template shadowrootmode="open" adoptcssmodule="(a module specifier)"> 
    <!-- ... --> 
  </template> 
</my-element>

Then both an inline module and a network-resourced module would be referenceable, by definition.