--- layout: page title: Scaffolding --- The scaffolding of Bootstrap refers to our general approach to building the project. It outlines the basic document requirements and project dependencies. Bootstrap's general approach to writing HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, as well as our core settings, is referred to as scaffolding. This includes required responsive and cross browser enhancements, dependencies, and more. ### HTML5 doctype Bootstrap makes use of certain HTML elements and CSS properties that **require** the use of the HTML5 doctype. Include it at the beginning of all your projects. {% highlight html %} ... {% endhighlight %} ### Mobile first Bootstrap is developed *mobile first*, a strategy in which we optimize code for mobile devices first and then scale up components as necessary using CSS media queries. To ensure proper rendering and touch zooming, **add the viewport meta tag** to your ``. {% highlight html %} {% endhighlight %} ### Normalize For improved cross-browser rendering, we use [Normalize.css](http://necolas.github.io/normalize.css/) to correct small inconsistencies across browsers and devices. ### jQuery plugins All our JavaScript plugins are built on top of jQuery.