Proposal Seeks to Simplify Drupal Theme and Render Systems for Design System Support

A major initiative is in progress within Drupal core to simplify the render and theme systems and position Drupal as the first design-system-native content management system. Led by Pierre Dureau, the effort focuses on making it faster and easier for frontend developers and agencies to implement design systems across projects, even when those systems are created using external frameworks.

The initiative responds to long-standing issues in Drupal theming. Themes are often difficult to reuse, overly tied to specific content models, and burdened with complex conventions. Unlike modules, which are business-agnostic and reusable, themes often require project-specific templates and logic. The proposal introduces a shift toward plugin-based design implementation using YAML discovery, treating frontend developers as UI plugin providers.

Current work centers on expanding existing theming tools like `breakpoints.yml`, `layouts.yml`, and Single Directory Components (SDC), while introducing new APIs for utilities, design tokens, modes, and CSS variables. These additions aim to allow developers to implement complete, reusable designs in a consistent and predictable way.

A future phase will simplify the Render and Form APIs by consolidating the large number of render elements and removing redundant template logic. This would reduce the system to fewer than 15 core renderables and eliminate the need for theme wrappers, preprocess hooks, and complex template suggestions. The goal is a cleaner, UI-focused system with fewer moving parts and better developer experience.

The work is being tracked under the meta issue Make Drupal the first "design-system native" CMS + Unify & simplify render & theme systems. Community members are invited to review, contribute, and follow the ongoing progress.