# grunt-contrib-less [![Build Status](https://travis-ci.org/gruntjs/grunt-contrib-less.png?branch=master)](https://travis-ci.org/gruntjs/grunt-contrib-less) > Compile LESS files to CSS. ## Getting Started This plugin requires Grunt `~0.4.0` If you haven't used [Grunt](http://gruntjs.com/) before, be sure to check out the [Getting Started](http://gruntjs.com/getting-started) guide, as it explains how to create a [Gruntfile](http://gruntjs.com/sample-gruntfile) as well as install and use Grunt plugins. Once you're familiar with that process, you may install this plugin with this command: ```shell npm install grunt-contrib-less --save-dev ``` Once the plugin has been installed, it may be enabled inside your Gruntfile with this line of JavaScript: ```js grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-contrib-less'); ``` *This plugin was designed to work with Grunt 0.4.x. If you're still using grunt v0.3.x it's strongly recommended that [you upgrade](http://gruntjs.com/upgrading-from-0.3-to-0.4), but in case you can't please use [v0.3.2](https://github.com/gruntjs/grunt-contrib-less/tree/grunt-0.3-stable).* ## Less task _Run this task with the `grunt less` command._ Task targets, files and options may be specified according to the grunt [Configuring tasks](http://gruntjs.com/configuring-tasks) guide. ### Options #### paths Type: `String|Array` Default: Directory of input file. Specifies directories to scan for @import directives when parsing. Default value is the directory of the source, which is probably what you want. #### compress Type: `Boolean` Default: False Compress output by removing some whitespaces. #### yuicompress Type: `Boolean` Default: False Compress output using cssmin.js #### optimization Type: `Integer` Default: null Set the parser's optimization level. The lower the number, the less nodes it will create in the tree. This could matter for debugging, or if you want to access the individual nodes in the tree. #### strictImports Type: `Boolean` Default: False Force evaluation of imports. #### dumpLineNumbers Type: `String` Default: false Configures -sass-debug-info support. Accepts following values: `comments`, `mediaquery`, `all`. ### Usage Examples ```js less: { development: { options: { paths: ["assets/css"] }, files: { "path/to/result.css": "path/to/source.less" } }, production: { options: { paths: ["assets/css"], yuicompress: true }, files: { "path/to/result.css": "path/to/source.less" } } } ``` ## Release History * 2013-0523   v0.5.2   Improve error handling. * 2013-04-25   v0.5.1   Gracefully handle configuration without sources. * 2013-02-15   v0.5.0   First official release for Grunt 0.4.0. * 2013-01-23   v0.5.0rc7   Updating grunt/gruntplugin dependencies to rc7. Changing in-development grunt/gruntplugin dependency versions from tilde version ranges to specific versions. Remove experimental wildcard destination support. Switching to this.files api. * 2012-10-18   v0.3.2   Add support for dumpLineNumbers. * 2012-10-12   v0.3.1   Rename grunt-contrib-lib dep to grunt-lib-contrib. * 2012-09-24   v0.3.0   Global options depreciated Revert normalize linefeeds. * 2012-09-16   v0.2.2   Support all less options Normalize linefeeds Default path to dirname of src file. * 2012-09-10   v0.2.0   Refactored from grunt-contrib into individual repo. --- Task submitted by [Tyler Kellen](http://goingslowly.com/) *This file was generated on Thu May 23 2013 12:17:19.*