Shopify Skeleton Theme

A minimal, carefully structured Shopify theme designed to help you quickly get started. Designed with modularity, maintainability, and Shopify's best practices in mind.

Getting started

Prerequisites

Before starting, ensure you have the latest Shopify CLI installed:

• Shopify CLI – helps you download, upload, preview themes, and streamline your workflows

If you use VS Code:

• Shopify Liquid VS Code Extension – provides syntax highlighting, linting, inline documentation, and auto-completion specifically designed for Liquid templates

Clone

Clone this repository using Git or Shopify CLI:

git clone git@github.com:Shopify/skeleton-theme.git
# or
shopify theme init

Preview

Preview this theme using Shopify CLI:

shopify theme dev

Theme architecture

.
├── assets # Stores static assets (CSS, JS, images, fonts, etc.)
├── blocks # Reusable, nestable, customizable UI components
├── config # Global theme settings and customization options
├── layout # Top-level wrappers for pages (layout templates)
├── locales # Translation files for theme internationalization
├── sections # Modular full-width page components
├── snippets # Reusable Liquid code or HTML fragments
└── templates # Templates combining sections to define page structures

To learn more, refer to the theme architecture documentation.

Templates

Templates control what's rendered on each type of page in a theme.

The Skeleton Theme scaffolds JSON templates to make it easy for merchants to customize their store.

None of the template types are required, and not all of them are included in the Skeleton Theme. Refer to the template types reference for a full list.

Sections

Sections are Liquid files that allow you to create reusable modules of content that can be customized by merchants. They can also include blocks which allow merchants to add, remove, and reorder content within a section.

Sections are made customizable by including a {% schema %} in the body. For more information, refer to the section schema documentation.

Blocks

Blocks let developers create flexible layouts by breaking down sections into smaller, reusable pieces of Liquid. Each block has its own set of settings, and can be added, removed, and reordered within a section.

Blocks are made customizable by including a {% schema %} in the body. For more information, refer to the block schema documentation.

Schemas

When developing components defined by schema settings, we recommend these guidelines to simplify your code:

• Single property settings: For settings that correspond to a single CSS property, use CSS variables:

  <divclass="collection"style="--gap: {{ block.settings.gap }}px">
  ...
  </div>
  {% stylesheet %}
  .collection {
  gap: var(--gap);
  }
  {% endstylesheet %}
  {% schema %}
  {
  "settings": [{
  "type": "range",
  "label": "gap",
  "id": "gap",
  "min": 0,
  "max": 100,
  "unit": "px",
  "default": 0,
  }]
  }
  {% endschema %}

• Multiple property settings: For settings that control multiple CSS properties, use CSS classes:

  <divclass="collection {{ block.settings.layout }}">
  ...
  </div>
  {% stylesheet %}
  .collection--full-width {
  /* multiple styles */
  }
  .collection--narrow {
  /* multiple styles */
  }
  {% endstylesheet %}
  {% schema %}
  {
  "settings": [{
  "type": "select",
  "id": "layout",
  "label": "layout",
  "values": [
  { "value": "collection--full-width", "label": "t:options.full" },
  { "value": "collection--narrow", "label": "t:options.narrow" }
  ]
  }]
  }
  {% endschema %}

CSS & JavaScript

For CSS and JavaScript, we recommend using the {% stylesheet %} and {% javascript %} tags. They can be included multiple times, but the code will only appear once.

critical.css

The Skeleton Theme explicitly separates essential CSS necessary for every page into a dedicated critical.css file.

Contributing

We're excited for your contributions to the Skeleton Theme! This repository aims to remain as lean, lightweight, and fundamental as possible, and we kindly ask your contributions to align with this intention.

Visit our CONTRIBUTING.md for a detailed overview of our process, guidelines, and recommendations.

License

Skeleton Theme is open-sourced under the MIT License.