Create symlinks to LESS files | Archived 2.3 Magento Developer Guide

In addition to the command arguments described in this topic, see Common arguments.

Run all Magento CLI commands as the file system owner.

Create LESS files

Use this command to create symlinks to LESS files.

Command options:

bin/magento dev:source-theme:deploy [--type="..."] [--locale="..."] [--area="..."] [--theme="..."] [file1] ... [fileN]

During development, this command creates symlinks for LESS files in the var/view_preprocessed and pub/static folders. This process does not compile LESS files into CSS files.

The following table explains this command’s parameters and values.

Parameter	Value	Required?
--type	Type of source files: [less] (default: "less") Currently, LESS is the only file type supported.	No
--locale	Locale code. To display the list of locale codes, enter `bin/magento info:language:list`	No
--area	Area (`adminhtml` for the administrative area, `frontend` for the storefront).	No
--theme	Theme name in `<VendorName>/<theme name>` format. For example, `Magento/blank` or `Magento/backend`.	No
<file>	Space-separated list of CSS files to convert to LESS without the `.css` extension. (Default is `css/styles-m css/styles-l`, for adminhtml type `css/styles css/styles-old`)	No

For example, to create LESS files for the frontend theme named VendorName/themeName in the en_US locale using a CSS file named <magento_root>/pub/static/frontend/VendorName/themeName/en_US/css/styles-l.css, enter the following command:

bin/magento dev:source-theme:deploy --type="less" --locale="en_US" --area="frontend" --theme="VendorName/themeName" css/styles-l

The following messages display to confirm success:

Processed Area: frontend, Locale: en_US, Theme: VendorName/themeName, File type: less.
-> css/styles-l.less
Successfully processed.

To create LESS files for the adminhtml, enter the following command:

bin/magento dev:source-theme:deploy --locale="en_US" --area="adminhtml" --theme="Magento/backend" css/styles css/styles-old