I've followed a number of guides to properly setting up .less files in a custom magento theme and nothing seems to be working. I've read these threads on here:
how to automatic update file `.less` in custom theme magento2?
Unable to import custom less file in custom theme's modules in Magento2
How can I add custom less file and in a particular theme compile less file in Magento 2
and poured over this page on the magento 2 docs:
https://devdocs.magento.com/guides/v2.1/frontend-dev-guide/css-topics/css-preprocess.html
I tried making modifications in: {mythemedir}/web/css/source/_extend.less {mythemedir}/web/css/source/_extends.less {mythemedir}/web/css/source/_theme.less {mythemedir}/web/css/source/_styles.less
I've made local copies of the styles-l.less and styles-m.less from the blank (which had imports for source/_sources.less and source/_theme.less)
At this point I'm just trying to drop a simple custom class in to see that it properly gets added to the site css, but nothing I tried generates anything anywhere in the static files:
> rm -fr pub/static/frontend/Magento/custom
> php bin/magento setup:static-content:deploy -f
> php bin/magento cache:flush
> grep -r customClass pub/static
>
I also then check by Ctrl-F5 reloading the test page with a block assigned that class and nothing.
So what the hell is necessary to get the built in .less to function properly in a custom class?