While trying to setup a starter project I hit a bit of a snag. Turns out the latest less files don’t want to play nice with the grunt-contrib-less (0.5.2) that comes with SailsJS (0.9.8).
parse error: failed at &:extend(.clearfix all);
Since the required version is written explicitly in SailsJS package.json it’s not enough to just update your own project dependencies to the newer grunt/less versions (duh! took me a while before I realized that).