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
- Yarn
npx create-medusa-app
yarn 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.
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.
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 🚀
- Learn how to deploy the Medusa server.
- Learn how to deploy the Medusa admin.
- Learn how to deploy the storefront.