Should a web framework / template like Admin-LTE be put in source control alongside our own code?

My team does predominantly back-end work in C#, with a smattering of front-end web development using Angular. We're starting a new website project, based on the Admin LTE framework / template. This is the first project we're doing which uses a framework / template like this. The initial build of the site, as committed to source control, was over 2500 files - the vast, vast majority are from the Admin LTE template or its dependencies, and many of them are not related to nor will ever be used by our project. This has raised the question of whether or not these files belong in source control at all, and if so, where. With a similar situation in C#, we'd use a Nuget package, add it to packages.config, and download it as needed. However, Admin LTE doesn't seem to exist as a Nuget package. It does exist in npm, though that is not part of our typical workflow / build process. My strong thought is that we should not be keeping these files in source control at all, since they are not ours to maintain. On the other hand, web development is not my forte so is this is a normal thing in these kinds of projects? If they don't belong in source control, do we need to update our processes to download it via npm and copy the files to where they belong? Add the git repo as a submodule / subtree? Something else?

May 28, 2025 - 08:50

My team does predominantly back-end work in C#, with a smattering of front-end web development using Angular. We're starting a new website project, based on the Admin LTE framework / template. This is the first project we're doing which uses a framework / template like this.

The initial build of the site, as committed to source control, was over 2500 files - the vast, vast majority are from the Admin LTE template or its dependencies, and many of them are not related to nor will ever be used by our project. This has raised the question of whether or not these files belong in source control at all, and if so, where.

With a similar situation in C#, we'd use a Nuget package, add it to packages.config, and download it as needed. However, Admin LTE doesn't seem to exist as a Nuget package. It does exist in npm, though that is not part of our typical workflow / build process.

My strong thought is that we should not be keeping these files in source control at all, since they are not ours to maintain. On the other hand, web development is not my forte so is this is a normal thing in these kinds of projects?

If they don't belong in source control, do we need to update our processes to download it via npm and copy the files to where they belong? Add the git repo as a submodule / subtree? Something else?