Quick start
Create a theme, run it locally and change one thing.
Follow this to get a theme running on your machine in a few minutes. You need Node 20.19 or newer, pnpm 10 or newer, and git. Themes are pnpm-only: other package managers install duplicate copies of shared libraries and the theme fails at render time. No Salla account is needed.
Install the Salla CLI
npm install -g @salla.sa/cli
salla theme doctorsalla theme doctor checks Node, pnpm and git and tells you what to fix. Details are in Prerequisites.
Create the theme
salla theme create --type react --name "My Store" --yesThis downloads the starter theme, renames it to yours, runs git init, installs dependencies, starts the dev server and opens the storefront. See Create a theme for what each part does.
Open it
The storefront lives under a language prefix: http://localhost:5173/en for English, http://localhost:5173/ar for Arabic (right-to-left). A URL without a prefix redirects to /ar. If port 5173 is busy, the CLI picks the next free port and prints it.
On later days, start the server again from your theme folder:
salla theme devChange one thing
Open locales/en.json and change a string:
{
"pages.cart.empty_cart": "Nothing here yet"
}Save, then visit /en/cart with an empty cart. The new wording shows. Translations are covered in Languages and RTL.
Try a merchant setting
The dev server shows a floating settings panel. It reads twilight.json, so you can flip a setting or edit a home block and see the page react, without a dashboard. See Settings.
Pass options to the CLI (salla theme dev --port 3000), not after pnpm dev --. Anything after a bare -- is silently dropped.
By default the theme shows a demo store. To use your own, run salla theme dev --store <id> (see Link a store). The theme editor and publishing are covered in Local development.
Next
Project structure: what is in the folder you just created.