I was this years old to know aside of HTML, you can also convert CSS file to PHP in order to use some PHP shenanigans. Just add a header to indicate that it’s of type text/css:
<?php header("Content-Type: text/css"); ?>
@import url('../styles.css?v=<?=filemtime('../styles.css')?>');
.category-header {
background-color: var(--color-bg-alt);
backdrop-filter: blur(5px);
...
}
and inside the HTML file you can link the stylesheet like usual, except changing the .css to .php
<link rel="stylesheet" href="gallery.php">
Wild.