@Jdlrobson, is there any interest in proposing this as a GSoC/Outreachy project? Do one or more of the blocked tasks seem like good candidates?

So I've asserted that if we accept a Minerva skin depends on MobileFrontend this is possible and how it might work in https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/245607

If we want to do this it's likely to need a focused effort but should be highly possible.

Would appreciate someone sanity checking the approach.

In T71366#1720351, @Jdlrobson wrote:

So I've asserted that if we accept a Minerva skin depends on MobileFrontend this is possible and how it might work in https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/245607

A skin depending on an extension seems fairly weird and unreasonable to me. I'd like to see MobileFrontend killed, so ideally any code split out from it would no longer depend on it.

Seems like a logical step. Splitting the mobile site into a skin and an extension means alternative mobile skins can be written. It also means the extension becomes smaller so merging it into the core or turning it into a library that certain skins might use will be less work.

For completeness: You already can develop another mobile skin for MobileFrontend :) Nevertheless: Moving the skin out of MobileFrontend seems to be the right way, even if it still depends on MobileFrontend.

In T71366#1720661, @Tgr wrote:

Seems like a logical step. Splitting the mobile site into a skin and an extension means alternative mobile skins can be written. It also means the extension becomes smaller so merging it into the core or turning it into a library that certain skins might use will be less work.

I agree with this. The part I disagree with is a skin relying on an extension. This type of dependency isn't exactly unprecedented, as a loose example, we have (and had) extensions that rely on other extensions. I just think that it's poor practice. If you want a mobile skin, install a skin that has mobile support. (And, by the way, all of the skins deployed to Wikimedia wikis should have mobile support.)

In T71366#1720667, @Florian wrote:

For completeness: You already can develop another mobile skin for MobileFrontend :)

I don't want to develop a skin for MobileFrontend. I want to be able to, similar to WordPress, pick a theme and have it just work on mobile.

In T71366#1724292, @MZMcBride wrote:

The part I disagree with is a skin relying on an extension. This type of dependency isn't exactly unprecedented, as a loose example, we have (and had) extensions that rely on other extensions.

Moving common functionality to a shared library to avoid duplication of code is common sense. Currently, MediaWiki doesn't support plain libraries well (they can't register hooks for example) so you need to use extensions for this purpose (or move the code into core itself, of course, which is AIUI an ongoing effort for at least parts of MobileFrontend).

And, by the way, all of the skins deployed to Wikimedia wikis should have mobile support.

Indeed. AIUI MobileFrontend (or at least its ugly part) is more about making the content of the wiki support mobile. Currently a skin has very little control over how content gets formatted so something like this is necessary. (I think all the "semantic" proposals for WikiDev lay out a good roadmap for enabling skins to function on their own, but it's not a short way to go.)

All the above tasks do not block separating Minerva from MobileFrontend.

T96202 however, does block removing the Minerva dependency on MobileFrontend.

To ease the transition I've submitted a patch to vagrant:

• https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/359014 Add Minerva role

Change 364928 had a related patch set uploaded (by Jdlrobson; owner: Jdlrobson):
[mediawiki/skins/MinervaNeue@master] Change message prefixes to minerva- from mobile-frontend-

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/364928

Change 364928 abandoned by Jdlrobson:
Change message prefixes to minerva- from mobile-frontend-

Reason:
A discussion for another day...

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/364928