The project in question uses PostCSS, which is to CSS as Babel is to Javascript.

The point of a broad set of utility classes is to have predefined and discrete classes that map to conventions your application uses. Here's a few examples from an app I use:

.u-colorPrimary { font-color: var(--utils-css-c-primary) !important;; }

.u-textSmall { font-size: 0.75rem; }

Each of these are a "standard" that we use throughout the app. There are NO one-offs. These can then be composed into "component" classes (e.g. .Button, or .TextInput).

The benefit is mostly threefold:

* Maintainability is great. No hunting throughout the templates when you want to change the primary colour. Just update the .u-colorPrimary class, or its underlying variable. * Our developers can look at a design and mostly do it themselves. No need for a CSS pro to come in. * We can package these into a node module and share them across our apps.

You're right: this is laziness. I don't like to repeat myself, and I like consistency.