Themes

An EmDash theme is a complete Astro project distributed as a create-astro template. It contains the public routes and components, EmDash runtime configuration, and an optional seed file for the site’s initial content model.

There is no runtime theme package or template hierarchy. After scaffolding, the theme files belong to the site and can be edited directly.

Theme contents

Current EmDash templates use these paths:

Template structure

astro.config.mjs
package.json
seed/
└── seed.json
src/
├── components/
├── layouts/
├── live.config.ts
├── pages/
└── styles/

• astro.config.mjs configures server output, the deployment adapter, EmDash, the database, and storage.
• src/live.config.ts registers the _emdash live collection.
• src/pages/ defines public routes.
• seed/seed.json can declare initial collections, fields, settings, taxonomies, bylines, menus, redirects, widget areas, sections, and sample content.
• package.json#emdash.seed points to the seed file.

The blank template deliberately has no user seed and falls back to EmDash’s built-in default seed. The other current templates point to seed/seed.json.

Install a template

The following command scaffolds the Node blog template:

npm create astro@latest -- --template @emdash-cms/template-blog

Use the corresponding -cloudflare package for a Cloudflare Workers project:

npm create astro@latest -- --template @emdash-cms/template-blog-cloudflare

Current template packages include:

Purpose	Node	Cloudflare
Empty project shell	@emdash-cms/template-blank	No current counterpart
Basic pages site	@emdash-cms/template-starter	@emdash-cms/template-starter-cloudflare
Posts, pages, categories, tags, and widgets	@emdash-cms/template-blog	@emdash-cms/template-blog-cloudflare
Project portfolio	@emdash-cms/template-portfolio	@emdash-cms/template-portfolio-cloudflare
Marketing pages composed from versioned blocks	@emdash-cms/template-marketing	@emdash-cms/template-marketing-cloudflare

After scaffolding, install dependencies and start the generated site:

cd my-site
npm install
npm run dev

Open http://localhost:4321/_emdash/admin. The first visit redirects to setup, where you enter the site identity and administrator details. When the selected template has sample entries, the wizard also lets you include or omit them. Including them is useful while evaluating the design because the routes have realistic content to render.

First setup

EmDash reads the seed at build time. It looks in this order:

1. .emdash/seed.json.
2. The path in package.json#emdash.seed.
3. seed/seed.json.
4. The built-in default seed when no user seed is found.

On the first admin visit, the setup wizard shows seed metadata and lets the administrator choose whether to include sample content. It applies the seed to an empty database and records setup completion. Later starts do not reapply the seed to an existing site.

Caution

A seed is initial setup data, not a deployment migration system. After setup, change a live site’s model through EmDash and export the resulting schema when the repository needs an updated baseline.

Customize the installed site

Edit the generated project directly:

• Change route files in src/pages/.
• Change shared markup in src/layouts/ and src/components/.
• Change the initial model in seed/seed.json before first setup.
• Manage an existing site’s model under Content Types in the admin.

Use Creating themes to prepare a reusable template and Seed files for the complete seed contract.