Developers · Getting started

Getting started in fifteen minutes

Once your application is approved, this takes you from an empty account to a theme in review. You change one thing on the way, so you see the whole loop before you build anything real.

Before you start

An approved account

Applications are reviewed by a person while the programme is invite-only. You get an email when yours is decided.

  • Apply to build themes. Sign in with your WhizzyCommerce account first, or create one on the way.
  • A browser. The CLI and Claude are optional, and Tools covers both.

In order

The steps

All screens are at app.whizzycommerce.com. The path under each step is the menu you follow in the Developer area.

  1. Accept the developer agreement

    Developer › Agreement

    Read it and press Accept. It covers the licence you grant, the revenue share and your support duty. The public copy is at /legal/developer-agreement.

    You can add tax and bank details later, under Developer › Payouts. You only need them before your first payout.

  2. Create a development shop

    Developer › Development shops

    Pick a sample catalogue: clothing and fashion, jewellery and accessories, home and living. The shop opens with products, collections and licensed photographs, so you never design against placeholders.

    A development shop never expires and cannot take orders. You can have up to 3.

  3. Create a theme workspace from the reference theme

    Developer › Themes

    Give it a slug, such as harbour, and a name. Choose Start from the reference theme. You get a complete theme that already passes every check, with its section types renamed to harbour.*.

  4. Open the browser editor

    Developer › Themes › harbour › Editor

    The file tree is on the left: theme.json, theme.css, sections/ and templates/. The editor validates as you type and lists anything it would drop.

  5. Preview on your development shop

    Editor › Preview

    Choose the development shop and a page: home, collection or product. The theme is put on that shop as a draft and a preview opens beside the code. Nothing is visible to anyone else.

  6. Make one change

    Editor › theme.json

    Change the accent colour token and save. Then preview again.

    "tokens": {
  "colorAccent": "#2e6b4f"
}

  7. Bump the version and submit

    Editor › Submit

    Set "version": "1.0.0" in theme.json, write a changelog of a sentence or two, and press Submit. The checks run in about a minute and show their results on the same screen.

Prefer a terminal? Steps 3 to 7 are also whizzy-theme init harbour, whizzy-theme dev --page=home and whizzy-theme submit -m "First version". See the CLI.

Then

What happens next

A version that passes the checks waits for a person. The target is two business days.

  • Approved: the theme is listed once its listing is complete. Fill in the listing under Developer › Themes › harbour.
  • Changes requested: the reviewer's notes appear on the theme's page and in your email. Fix, bump the patch version, and submit again.
  • Read Theme format before you build the real thing, and Releases and review before your first real submission.
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Getting started with themes · WhizzyCommerce