Your first site in 10 minutes

This guide starts from scratch and stops at a green astro build. The first page shows without an account: the starter ships a demo snapshot read offline. Count account creation separately, the rest fits in ten minutes.

1. Create the project and run it

   The starter installs an Astro site with the Menestrel loader already wired and an offline fixture.

   npm create menestrel@latest my-site
   cd my-site
   npm run dev

   Open http://localhost:4321/. The home page, a service entry and the Menestrel badge show up, served by the embedded snapshot.

2. Tour the template

   Three files are enough to understand the wiring:

   • src/content.config.ts: each collection declares loader: menestrelLoader({ collection: '...' }).
   • src/layouts/Layout.astro: <CmsSeo>, the richtext-styles.css sheet and <MenestrelBadge>.
   • src/pages/services/[slug].astro: getStaticPaths over the entries, <RichText> and <CmsImage> over the fields.

3. Create a project and a token

   In the Menestrel admin, create a project, then an admin-scoped token. Keep it: menestrel init will drop it into an unversioned .env file.

4. Connect the project and push the schema

   From the site root, init writes the config, the .env and the snippets to paste. sync sends your schema to the server.

   npx menestrel init --token cmt_adm_xxx
   npx menestrel sync --yes

5. Edit, publish, build

   Edit an entry in the admin and publish it. Pull the published snapshot and run the build: the pages reflect the published content.

   npx menestrel pull
   npm run build

And for production

In production, do not depend on the admin at build time. Set MENESTREL_CONTENT_URL to the published snapshot URL: the build passes even if the application is down. See Environment variables.