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Use create-medusa-app

In this document, you’ll learn how to use create-medusa-app to create a Medusa project with the 3 main components of Medusa.

Overview​

As explained in the Introduction guide, Medusa is composed of 3 different components: the headless server, the storefront, and the admin dashboard.

Medusa provides the necessary tools and resources to set up the 3 components separately. This ensures that developers have full freedom to choose their tech stack, as they can choose any framework for the storefront and admin dashboard.

However, if you’re interested in using Medusa’s starters for the 3 components, you can easily make use of the create-medusa-app command instead of creating each separately.

When you run the create-medusa-app command, you’ll install a Medusa server, a Medusa admin, and optionally a storefront at the same time.

How to Create a Medusa Project​

In your terminal, run the following command:

npx create-medusa-app

Project Directory Name​

You’ll then be asked to enter the name of the directory you want the project to be installed in. You can either leave the default value my-medusa-store or enter a new name.

Choose Medusa Starter​

Next, you’ll be asked to choose the Medusa starter used to install the Medusa server. You can either pick the default Medusa starter, the Contentful starter or enter a starter URL by choosing Other:

? Which Medusa starter would you like to install? …
❯ medusa-starter-default
  medusa-starter-contentful
  Other

The server will be installed under the backend directory under the project directory. An SQLite database will be created inside that directory as well with demo data seeded into it.

tip

You can learn more about the Contentful starter in the Contentful Integration documentation.

Choose Storefront Starter​

After choosing the Medusa starter, you’ll be asked to choose the storefront starter. You can choose one of the starters in the list included or choose None to skip installing a storefront:

? Which storefront starter would you like to install?
❯ Gatsby Starter
Next.js Starter
medusa.express (Next.js)
medusa.express (Gatsby)
Gatsby Starter (Simple)
None

If you choose an option other than None, a storefront will be installed under the storefront directory.

tip

Learn more about the Next.js and Gatsby starter storefronts.

Dependency Installation​

After choosing the above starters, the installation of each component will begin along with its dependencies. Once the installation is done, you’ll see instructions related to how to start each component.

Your project is ready 🚀. The available commands are:

Medusa API
cd my-medusa-store/backend
yarn start

Admin
cd my-medusa-store/admin
yarn start

Storefront
cd my-medusa-store/storefront
yarn start

The commands will differ based on your choices in previous prompts.

Project Directory Structure​

Inside the root project directory which was specified at the beginning of the installation process you’ll find the following directory structure:

/my-medusa-store
  /storefront // Medusa storefront starter
  /backend // Medusa starter as a backend option 
  /admin // Medusa admin panel

What’s Next 🚀​