Quickstart

Edit in CMS

Prerequisites#

Before you start, make sure you have these installed:

  • Node.js 18+ — download here
  • pnpm — install with npm install -g pnpm
  • Wrangler CLI — install with npm install -g wrangler
Tip

Already have Node.js? Check your version with node -v. Flare CMS requires v18 or higher.

1. Clone the repo#

git clone https://github.com/jjaimealeman/flarecms.git
cd flarecms

2. Install dependencies#

pnpm install
npm install
yarn install

3. Build the core package#

The CMS backend depends on @flare-cms/core, so you need to build it first:

pnpm build

This runs tsup in packages/core/ and produces the compiled output that the CMS package imports.

4. Set up the local database#

Run D1 migrations to create the database schema locally:

cd packages/cms
pnpm run db:migrate:local

Then seed an admin user:

pnpm run seed

5. Set the JWT secret#

Flare CMS requires a JWT_SECRET for authentication. For local development, create a .dev.vars file in packages/cms/:

echo 'JWT_SECRET=my-local-dev-secret-change-in-production' > .dev.vars
Warning

Never use this secret in production. Use wrangler secret put JWT_SECRET for deployed environments.

6. Start the dev server#

wrangler dev

Visit http://localhost:8787/admin in your browser. You should see the Flare CMS admin login page.

Log in with the credentials from the seed script and you're in.

7. Create your first content#

  1. Click Collections in the admin sidebar
  2. Pick a collection (like Blog Posts)
  3. Click New to create an entry
  4. Fill in the fields and hit Save

That's it. Your content is stored in D1 and available via the REST API at /api/content/{collection-name}.

What's next?#