Slate CLI
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Slate is a command line tool for Shopify Theme development. It's designed to assist your development workflow
and speed up the process of developing, testing and deploying themes to Shopify stores.
Table of Contents
Installation
1. Get the latest version
npm install -g @shopify/slate
note: if you get an EACCES
error, refer to Fixing npm permissions
You should now be able to run slate from your terminal. Try running slate --version
to verify that everything worked.
Getting started
1. Create a new project
Run the following commands to create a new project:
slate theme <my-theme-name>
You will be prompted with some questions to help configure your theme. A new directory will be created within the
current directory (similar to git clone
).
Once the boilerplate has been generated, Slate runs npm install
to download remaining dependencies (~1min).
2. Configure your Store / Environment settings
When the theme generator has finished, the theme's config.yml
file will open automatically.
You will need to fill in the required fields for each store / environment. Comment out any environments that you want to set up later or Theme Kit will throw an error.
For more details on configuring your environments please see our
Store configuration guide.
3. Navigating the codebase
The /src
directory is where you develop your theme. It includes
the standard Theme structure, and a few additional folders.
The contents of /src
will be compiled into a dist/
directory during most slate tasks. The compiled files in /dist
are the files that will be uploaded to your store.
Some new folders have been included in the /src
directory:
/icons
- custom svg icons. These are converted to snippets for use with {% include %}
(see slate#svg-icons)./scripts
- You can add sub-folders to help with organization. scripts/theme.js
is the main entry point./scripts/vendor
- external JS. This folder is combined to a vendor.js
file and included in the main layout./styles
- You can add sub-folders to help with organization. styles/theme.scss
is the main entry point.
4. Start developing your Theme
You're ready to start developing with Slate. To get started, run the following command from your theme directory:
slate start
This will build your theme from the /src
contents to the format required by Shopify (outputs a /dist
directory).
The /dist
folder will be uploaded to the store / theme_id specified in your default environment.
Slate will begin watching your theme directory for file changes and deploy them to your store whenever you make a change.
Updating Slate
npm install @shopify/slate --global
Global commands
theme
slate theme [name] [--options]
Generates a theme with build tools. The name argument is required and you will be prompted to enter it if it's not provided.
options
--yarn installs theme dependencies with yarn instead of npm
migrate
slate migrate [--options]
Converts an existing theme to work with Slate. Run this command from your project root to install dependencies and restructure your theme files into a src/
directory. Empty icons/
, styles/
and scripts/
folders will also be created.
Create config.yml
in your root using this sample file, then use theme commands to start developing.
options
--yarn installs theme dependencies with yarn instead of npm
help
slate [command] -h, slate [command] --help
Outputs help information for Slate (slate --help
) or a specific command (slate deploy --help
).
version
slate -v, slate --version
Outputs the current version of Slate CLI installed on your system.
Theme commands
Command | Usage |
---|
build | slate build |
deploy | slate deploy [--options] |
start | slate start [--options] |
test | state test |
watch | slate watch [--options] |
zip | slate zip |
build
slate build
Compiles your theme files and assets into a Shopify theme, found in the dist
folder. No files will be uploaded to your shop.
deploy
slate deploy [--options]
Performs a fresh build followed by a full deploy; replacing existing files on the remote server and replacing them with the full set of build files, and removing remote files that are no longer in use.
Running slate deploy --manual
will instead create a new zip file of your theme (see slate zip) and open the admin themes page as defined by your environment where you can then manually install your theme from the zip file.
options
-e, --env deploy to a comma-separated list of environments
-m, --manual disable auto-deployment of the theme files
Deploy to a different environment with the -e
flag (short for --env
) plus the environment name, or multiple environments at once with comma separated values
slate deploy -e staging
slate deploy -e development,staging,production
start
slate start [--options]
Performs a full deploy of your theme (see slate deploy) and starts the watchers (see slate watch).
options
-e, --env deploy to a comma-separated list of environments
test
slate test
Uses the @shopify/theme-lint package to run translation tests on your locales found in the /src/locales
folder. The package checks for untranslated keys inside of your Liquid templates, missing translation keys in specific locale files, and translation key HTML validity.
watch
slate watch [--options]
Sets up the watchers for all theme assets and deploys the compiled versions to your shop.
options
-e, --env deploy to a specific environment
zip
slate zip
Performs a fresh build of your theme and zips it into a file that's compatible with Shopify.
The zip file can be found within an upload folder that is generated within your theme project root folder.
The zip is overwritten each time you use this command and is not meant to be used for versioning.
License
MIT, see LICENSE.md for details.
![](https://cdn.shopify.com/shopify-marketing_assets/builds/19.0.0/shopify-full-color-black.svg)