Mark Conroy Reflects on LocalGov Drupal Work in January 2026

In a monthly update, Mark Conroy summarises his January 2026 contributions to LocalGov Drupal, focusing on a mix of technical maintenance, accessibility improvements, and internal process challenges. He notes that the ongoing migration of projects from GitHub to Drupal.org has slowed development by forcing teams to track issues across two platforms.

One of the main technical highlights is Conroy’s work on using theme-level post_update hooks to apply system-wide changes without requiring a new companion module. This approach allows existing LocalGov sites to be updated safely when new design patterns or layout defaults are introduced.

Several accessibility-related tasks are also covered, including ongoing discussion around appropriate aria-label values for facet and directory blocks, and the addition of fallback logic for missing section titles in Guides content. Conroy notes that the section title now defaults to the Guide title if left empty, implemented as a configuration change rather than custom logic.

Other updates include work on exposing file type icons on the frontend, standardising document link formatting across LocalGov Core and Base, and adding CKEditor 5 styling support to the subtheme generator. He has also prepared a merge request to make automatic “Review date” behaviour configurable when content is published.

On the core side, Conroy has begun work on deprecating the Stable9 theme, which he maintains, with plans to remove it in Drupal 12 after marking it deprecated in Drupal 11.4. He also reveals early work on redesigning the Scarfolk theme, describing it as long overdue and intended to improve LocalGov Drupal’s frontend appeal.