create-velocms-theme

Scaffold a new VeloCMS theme project ready for npm publish.

Usage

npx create-velocms-theme my-theme

Or install globally:

npm install -g create-velocms-theme
create-velocms-theme my-theme

Prompts

The CLI will ask you:

1. Theme name — human-readable display name (e.g. "Minimal Portfolio")
2. Theme slug — kebab-case package suffix (e.g. "minimal-portfolio")
3. Theme type — layout | niche | pack
4. Niche category — (only if type = niche) photographer | podcaster | restaurant | ...
5. Author name
6. Author email
7. License — default: MIT
8. Short description

Non-interactive mode

npx create-velocms-theme my-theme --non-interactive

Uses sensible defaults for CI environments.

Generated scaffold

my-theme/
├── package.json           # velocms-theme-my-theme, peerDeps: react@19, next@16
├── theme.manifest.json    # ThemeManifest (spec §4)
├── tsconfig.json
├── tsconfig.build.json
├── README.md
├── .gitignore
├── preview/               # Place thumbnail.png + screenshots here
└── src/
    ├── index.ts           # Re-exports BlogIndex, PostLayout
    ├── index.test.ts      # Smoke test (vitest) — extend as your theme grows
    ├── BlogIndex.tsx      # Blog listing layout (TODO markers)
    ├── PostLayout.tsx     # Single post layout (TODO markers)
    ├── theme.config.ts    # Tailwind preset overrides
    └── styles.css         # Global CSS tokens

Building

npm run build   # compiles src/ → dist/

Submitting to marketplace

1. npm run build
2. Verify theme.manifest.json is complete
3. npx velocms-cli theme submit (coming Q3 2026)