Starter Kits

Use a Pantheon starter kit to configure a decoupled site backend.

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Create the CMS Backend

You can create a Front-End Site by using a Pantheon starter kit. Choose either a WordPress or Drupal CMS and connect it to the frontend application to create a site. The following configurations exist for the starter kit templates:

  • Drupal and Next.js
  • WordPress and Next.js
  • WordPress and Gatsby

Backend Installation and Configuration

Choose from the following approaches to configure your backend:

  • Dashboard Upstream:

    • If you prefer a more streamlined configuration; this is the Pantheon recommended option.

  • Build Tools:

    • If testing is important to your team's workflow. You will not have to manually push changes to your Pantheon code repository.

Dashboard Upstream Install

Install the Drupal backend using the Dashboard upstream.

Navigate to the Pantheon Dashboard to create a site from the Decoupled Drupal Composer Managed upstream

Alternatively, you can use Terminus. Enter the following command to create a site with the Decoupled Drupal Composer Managed upstream.

terminus site:create my-new-site "Describe Site" --org='My Team Name' c76c0e51-ad85-41d7-b095-a98a75869760
  • Replace {My Team Name} with your team name, for example My Agency. This can also be omitted.
  • Note that c76c0e51-ad85-41d7-b095-a98a75869760 is the upstream_id for Decoupled Drupal Composer Managed.

Install Using Build Tools

  • Run terminus build:project:create:

    terminus build:project:create \
--team='{My Team Name}' \
--template-repository="git@github.com:pantheon-upstreams/decoupled-drupal-composer-managed.git" pantheon-upstreams/decoupled-drupal-composer-managed \
--visibility private {PROJECT_NAME} \
--profile="pantheon_decoupled_profile" \
--stability=dev

    • Replace {PROJECT_NAME} with your project name, for example decoupled-drupal.

    • Replace {My Team Name} with your team name, for example My Agency. This can also be omitted.

This action will result in a GitHub repository created for this new codebase under the authenticated user's namespace (unless the --org option is used), a site created on Pantheon, and a CircleCI project created for automated deployments.

Create a Decoupled WordPress Composer-Managed upstream using the Pantheon Dashboard.

Alternatively, you can run terminus build:project:create:

terminus site:create my-new-site "Describe Site" --org='My Team Name' c9f5e5c0-248f-4205-b63a-d2729572dd1f

  • Replace {PROJECT_NAME} with a Project name for example decoupled-wordpress.

  • Replace {My Team Name} with your team name - for example My Agency. This can also be omitted.

  • The upstream_id for Decoupled WordPress Composer Managed isc9f5e5c0-248f-4205-b63a-d2729572dd1f.

This will result in a GitHub repository created for this new codebase, a site created on Pantheon and a CircleCI project created for automated deployments.

Additional Configuration Options

Installing with Umami Demo Data

 Note

The following configuration can only be used on Drupal backend sites.

The installation command in the section above will create a backend with limited example content. If you would like to run the Umami Demo site, you will need to add the site configuration.

To create a site with Drupal's Umami demo data, change the profile flag in the terminus build:project:create command to the following:

--profile="pantheon_decoupled_umami_demo"

Using Other Git Hosts or CI Services

Terminus build tools supports a number of other combinations of Git hosts and CI services.

For example, to use GitHub actions as your CI service, you could add the following additional flag to your terminus build:project:create command:

--ci=githubactions

Other possible values include:

  • circleci
  • gitlab-pipelines
  • bitbucket-pipelines

If you are using GitHub Actions, your token should have the "workflow" scope.

For more information, refer to the Available Services section or the Build Tools documentation. For a list of all available Build Tools command options, see the Build Tools Project README.

Using a GitHub Organization

If you would like the repo created to be under a GitHub organization instead of the authenticated user's namespace, you can use the --org option:

--org="{My Organization Name}"

For information on additional options, refer to the Command Options section of the build tools documentation.

For information on additional options, refer to the Command Options section or see our Build Tools documentation.

Frontend Starter Configurations

The next-drupal-starter is designed as a starting point for a Next.js site that consumes data from a Drupal backend - specifically a Drupal backend configured with the pantheon_decoupled module installed.

The starter has a dependency on the @pantheon-systems/drupal-kit.

Creating A New Project with the Drupal and Next.js Starter Template

There are two methods that can be used to create a new project based on the next-drupal-starter:

  • Clone the starter repository
  • Use create-next-app

To clone the starter directly from GitHub, visit the repository link https://github.com/pantheon-systems/next-drupal-starter and click Code to open the clone dropdown and select your preferred method.

To create a new project using create-next-app, enter the following command:

npx create-next-app -e https://github.com/pantheon-systems/next-drupal-starter --use-npm

The command create-next-app uses the yarn package manager by default. Omit the --use-npm flag to use yarn, or keep it to use npm.

The next-wordpress-starter is designed as a starting point to for a Next.js site that consumes data from a WordPress backend - specifically a WordPress backend configured with the pantheon-decoupled and wp-graphql plugins installed.

The starter has a dependency on the @pantheon-systems/wordpress-kit.

Creating A New Project with the WordPress and Next.js Starter Template

There are two methods that can be used to create a new project based on the next-wordpress-starter:

  • Clone the starter repository
  • Use create-next-app

To clone the starter directly from GitHub, visit the repository link https://github.com/pantheon-systems/next-wordpress-starter and click Code to open the clone dropdown and select your preferred method.

To create a new project using create-next-app, enter the following command:

npx create-next-app -e https://github.com/pantheon-systems/next-wordpress-starter --use-npm

The create-next-app command uses the yarn package manager by default. Omit the --use-npm flag to use yarn, or keep it to use npm.

The gatsby-wordpress-starter is designed as a starting point for a Gatsby site that consumes data from a WordPress backend - specifically a WordPress backend configured with the pantheon-decoupled and wp-graphql plugins installed.

The starter has a dependency on the @pantheon-systems/wordpress-kit.

Creating A New Project with the WordPress and Gatsby Starter Template

There are two methods that can be used to create a new project with the gatsby-wordpress-starter:

  • Clone the starter repository
  • Use the gatsby-cli

To clone the starter directly from GitHub, visit the repository https://github.com/pantheon-systems/gatsby-wordpress-starter and click Code to open the clone dropdown and select your preferred method.

To create a new project using the gatsby-wordpress-starter as a template, use the gatsby new command.

  • If gatsby-cli is installed locally:

    gatsby new my-gatsby-wordpress-starter https://github.com/pantheon-systems/gatsby-wordpress-starter

  • If you are using npx:

    npx gatsby new my-gatsby-wordpress-starter https://github.com/pantheon-systems/gatsby-wordpress-starter

If you have a package manager preference, you must set it in the gatsby-cli options before initiating your new project.

# Set your preferred package manager for npm
gatsby options set pm npm

# Set your preferred package manager for yarn
gatsby options set pm yarn