What is Headless WordPress & Should You Use It?

This is a demo project using headless WordPress with Gatsby & Snipcart to create an e-commerce store.

👀 Read the step-by-step tutorial here

Gatsby Starter WordPress Homepage

Create a homepage using Gatsby and WordPress. This starter demonstrates how to use WordPress to build a homepage and can be customized to match your own visual branding.

View the Demo

Quick start

You will need a new or existing WordPress instance to use this starter. This starter requires the following plugins to be installed in your WordPress instance:

• WPGatsby
• WPGraphQL
• Advanced Custom Fields
• WPGraphQL for Advanced Custom Fields

Once these plugins are installed, you'll need the URL of the GraphQL endpoint for configuration.

1. Create a Gatsby site

   Use the Gatsby CLI to get started locally:

   npx gatsby new my-homepage https://github.com/gatsbyjs/gatsby-starter-wordpress-homepage

2. Import content to your WordPress instance

   • In your WordPress Admin, navigate to Custom Fields > Tools and upload the data/acf-field-groups.json file in the Import Field Groups form and click Import File.
   • Under Pages, create a new page called "Homepage."
   • Ensure that the Homepage imported into WordPress is set to be your site's "Homepage" by going to Settings > Reading and setting the Your homepage displays field to A static page and select Homepage from the dropdown.
   • Navigate back to the Homepage, where you should see the custom field groups for the homepage and you can add your own content.
   • Finally, go to GraphQL > Settings and copy the endpoint for the GraphQL API (e.g. https://example.com/graphql) and create a .env file with WPGRAPHQL_URL="<your-graphql-endpoint-url>".

3. Start developing

   In your site directory, start the development server:

   yarn start

   Your site should now be running at http://localhost:8000

4. Open the source code and start editing

What's included?

├── README.md
├── gatsby-config.js
├── gatsby-node.js
├── src
│   ├── components
│   ├── pages
│   ├── colors.css.ts
│   ├── styles.css.ts
│   └── theme.css.ts
└── .env.EXAMPLE

1. gatsby-config.js: Gatsby config file that includes plugins required for this starter.
2. gatsby-node.js: Gatsby Node config file that creates an abstract data model for the homepage content.
3. src/: The source directory for the starter, including pages, components, and Vanilla Extract files for styling.

How to

Update the color theme

To update the colors used in this starter, edit the src/colors.css.ts file.

// src/colors.css.ts
export const colors = {
  background: "#fff",
  text: "#004ca3",
  primary: "#004ca3",
  muted: "#f5fcff",
  active: "#001d3d",
  black: "#000",
}

If you'd like to add additional colors, add additional keys to this object. This file is imported into src/theme.css.ts and creates CSS custom properties, that can be imported and used in other .css.ts files.

The UI components file src/components/ui.js imports styles from src/components/ui.css.ts. You can see how the theme and color values are being used in this file.

Add your logo

Replace the src/components/brand-logo.js component with your own brand logo. If you have an SVG version, it can be rendered inline as a React component, following the example in this file. Note that SVG attributes will need to be camel cased for JSX.

Using an inline SVG for the logo allows it to pick up the colors used in CSS, which is how the logo colors are inverted for the mobile menu.

If you prefer to use an image, use the StaticImage component from gatsby-plugin-image in place of the SVG in this file.

Customize headings, buttons, and other styles

To further customize the look and feel of the homepage, edit the UI components in src/components/ui.js and styles in src/components/ui.css.ts.

Customize section components

To customize any of the sections of the homepage, edit the relevant component in src/components. Most of the styles for these components are handled with shared UI components in src/components/ui.js.

Create custom section components

To create a new type of section in your homepage, you'll want to create a new section component. Using the existing components as an example. For this example, we'll create a new "Banner" component.

1. First, update your custom fields in WordPress to support the new component

   Under the Custom Fields tab, create a new Field Group and call it "Homepage Banner." For this example, add two text fields: banner_heading and banner_text. In the Location rules, be sure to show the field group in Page post types. Also ensure that the Show in GraphQL option is enabled for this field.

   Navigate to the Pages tab and edit the Homepage and add content for the new Banner component.

2. Update gatsby-node.js

   Edit your site's gatsby-node.js file, adding a type for HomepageBanner that matches your custom fields in WordPress. This allows the homepage to query the abstract HomepageBanner type.

   // in gatsby-node.js
   exports.createSchemaCustomization = async ({ actions }) => {
     // ...
     actions.createTypes(`
       type HomepageBanner implements Node & HomepageBlock {
         id: ID!
         blocktype: String
         heading: String
         text: String
       }
     `)
     // ...
   }
   // ...
   exports.onCreateNode = ({ actions, node, createNodeId, createContentDigest }) => {
   }
     // ...
     switch (node.internal.type) {
       case "WpPage":
         if (node.slug !== "homepage") return
         const {
           homepageHero,
           homepageCta,
           statList,
           testimonialList,
           productList,
           logoList,
           featureList,
           benefitList,
           // add the new custom field group here
           homepageBanner,
         } = node
   
         const heroID = createNodeId(`${node.id} >>> HomepageHero`)
         // create an node id for the field group
         const bannerID = createNodeId(`${node.id} >>> HomepageBanner`)
         // ...
   
         // create a new node for this field group
         actions.createNode({
           id: bannerID,
           internal: {
             type: "HomepageBanner",
             contentDigest: createContentDigest(JSON.stringify(homepageBanner)),
           },
           parent: node.id,
           blocktype: "HomepageBanner",
           heading: homepageBanner.bannerHeading,
           text: homepageBanner.bannerText,
         })
         // ...
         actions.createNode({
           ...node,
           id: createNodeId(`${node.id} >>> Homepage`),
           internal: {
             type: "Homepage",
             contentDigest: node.internal.contentDigest,
           },
           parent: node.id,
           blocktype: "Homepage",
           image: node.featuredImageId,
           content: [
             heroID,
             logosID,
             // add your banner content in the postion you would like it to appear on the page
             bannerID,
             productsID,
             featuresID,
             benefitsID,
             statsID,
             testimonialsID,
             ctaID,
           ],
         })
         // ...
     }
   }

3. Next, create the Banner component:

   // src/components/banner.js
   import * as React from "react"
   import { graphql } from "gatsby"
   import { Section, Container, Heading, Text } from "./ui"
   
   export default function Banner(props) {
     return (
       <Section>
         <Container>
           <Heading>{props.heading}</Heading>
           <Text>{props.text}</Text>
         </Container>
       </Section>
     )
   }
   
   export const query = graphql`
     fragment HomepageBannerContent on HomepageBanner {
       id
       heading
       text
     }
   `

4. Export the component from src/components/sections.js

   // src/components/sections.js
   export { default as HomepageHero } from "./hero"
   export { default as HomepageFeature } from "./feature"
   export { default as HomepageFeatureList } from "./feature-list"
   export { default as HomepageLogoList } from "./logo-list"
   export { default as HomepageBenefitList } from "./benefit-list"
   export { default as HomepageTestimonialList } from "./testimonial-list"
   export { default as HomepageStatList } from "./stat-list"
   export { default as HomepageCta } from "./cta"
   export { default as HomepageProductList } from "./product-list"
   
   // add export for new component
   export { default as HomepageBanner } from "./banner"

5. Add the GraphQL query fragment to the query in src/pages/index.js

   // in src/pages/index.js
   export const query = graphql`
     {
       homepage {
         id
         title
         description
         image {
           id
           url
         }
         blocks: content {
           id
           blocktype
           ...HomepageHeroContent
           ...HomepageFeatureContent
           ...HomepageFeatureListContent
           ...HomepageCtaContent
           ...HomepageLogoListContent
           ...HomepageTestimonialListContent
           ...HomepageBenefitListContent
           ...HomepageStatListContent
           ...HomepageProductListContent
           # New component fragment
           ...HomepageBannerContent
         }
       }
     }
   `