Basic requirements for developing custom themes

We aim to make the experience of developing themes to be used as sites, blogs, newsletters, product or company updates pages, and more as approachable as possible, so this guide is will give you a quick run-through of the basic requirements for using our open-source code. You don't need much to get started!

This is a basic overview of how to get your theme up and running and we will be providing you with more detailed docs and code examples to help you on your journey!

• Javascript developer with some experience in Next.js and TypeScript
• Request API credentials for accessing the site and search functions from Prezly
• Choose a hosting for your new theme (we recommend Vercel or Netlify which provide a really easy setup process)

You can start your new theme project by cloning one of our public GitHub repositories:

• Bea Theme (if you want to make smaller changes to the layout and not spend too much time developing custom interfaces)
• Theme Starter (if you want to build your own design from the ground up, but still have all the basic features already implemented for you)
• Next.js Theme Kit (if you have a really experienced developer who wants to start completely from scratch)

You can find more details on getting started with each of these projects in the repository README files.

After cloning the repo, you'll need to provide the API credentials you requested from Prezly in the `.env` file, as well as in your deployment settings. You will find more details on that in the repository README as well.

Once you got your application up and running, you should see your site content being loaded. Now is the time to get creative and build the site of your dreams! 🤩

Feeling stuck somewhere in this process? Please feel free to get in touch with us and we can set up a call to help you out.

However, for now, the only way to request the API credentials is through our support, but we will be working on an easier way for you to get them independently very soon.