How to set up a local shopify theme development environment

In the seventh article, As requested, I’ll be talking about how to set up a local shopify theme development environment.

Let’s go!

To create unlimited Shopify stores for development, you can create a Shopify Partner account using this link

Install ThemeKit

ThemeKit is the Offical Shopify tool to work with Shopify themes locally

macOS Installation

brew tap shopify/shopifybrew install themekit

Windows Chocolatey Installation

choco install themekit

Linux Installation

curl -s [<https://shopify.github.io/themekit/scripts/install.py>](<https://shopify.github.io/themekit/scripts/install.py>) | sudo python

Create Private Shopify App

• Go Admin > Apps and click on manage private apps at the bottom of the page

• Click on Enable Private App Development and enable it

• Create a new private app and select Themes with reading and write permissions

• Copy the Password

Configure ThemeKit

• Go Online Store > Themes and click on edit code for the Shopify theme you want to work with locally
• In the URL bar, you’ll have the Shopify theme ID like this one https://ilias-demo.myshopify.com/admin/themes/ID

Create a directory for this theme

Run this command to download your theme code

theme get -p=your-password -s=[you-store.myshopify.com](<http://you-store.myshopify.com/>) -t=your-theme-id

and run this command to watch for file changes and upload them automatically to your remote Shopify theme

theme watch

It’s recommended to have config file, to prevent from overwriting the config/settings_data.json file that has the Shopify theme data like Shopify sections content or have a different environment

development:  password: Password  theme_id: theme_id  store: example.myshopify.com  ignore_files:    - config/settings_data.jsonproduction:  password: Password  theme_id: theme_id  store: example.myshopify.comtest:  password: Password  theme_id: theme_id  store: example.myshopify.com

References:

Shopify ThemeKit Docs