Skin Module
Explanation
The Skin Module is the API Java code uses to find a file inside a skin, following the skin's inheritance. It has nothing to say about how a skin looks.
The entry point is the SkinManager component, which hands out a Skin by id, for the current request or for the instance default. A Skin is a ResourceRepository, so it has a parent and resolves a name to a Resource. Every member of the four roles is listed on the Skin API. The artifact is xwiki-platform-skin-api, whose sources are in http://www.github.com/xwiki/xwiki-platform/tree/master/xwiki-platform-core/xwiki-platform-skin/xwiki-platform-skin-api.
The three kinds of skin each resolve to a class: an id that resolves to an existing page gives a WikiSkin, whose XWiki.XWikiSkins object holds the skin's properties; a skins/ folder of the environment holding a skin.properties gives an EnvironmentSkin; anything else falls back to a ClassLoaderSkin, which is how a skin shipped inside a JAR is found. A wiki skin reads a file from a template override object, then from a property of its skin object, then from an attachment of the same page.
A lookup starts in the skin itself and then walks the parent chain, and the first repository holding the name wins. A skin that names no parent falls back to the default parent skin. Only a filesystem or JAR skin can opt out of that fallback, by setting an empty parent in its skin.properties; a wiki skin whose baseskin is left empty still gets the default parent.
This module declares the roles and nothing else, and ships no components.txt. The implementations are in xwiki-platform-oldcore, package com.xpn.xwiki.internal.skin, which is where to read how a lookup behaves.
Skin extensions are a different mechanism, how a page contributes CSS or JavaScript to the response; they are documented on Skin Extension Plugin. Only their two roles are declared in this artifact.
FAQ
Does this API change a skin?
No, it only reads. A skin is edited from the administration, not through these roles.
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