create-contioreach-blog

create-contioreach-blog

Create a blog wired to ContioReach in one command. It runs on demo content straight away — no signup, no login, no questions about workspaces.

npx create-contioreach-blog my-blog

┌   create-contioreach-blog
│
◇  Which framework?
│  Next.js (recommended)
│
◇  Starter downloaded
◆  Demo API key added to .env.local
◆  Revalidation route ready: src/app/api/revalidate/all/route.js
◇  Dependencies installed
│
◇  Next ──────────────────────────────────╮
│  cd my-blog                             │
│  npm run dev   → http://localhost:3000  │
├─────────────────────────────────────────╯
│
●  You're on demo content. To use your own posts:
│    1. Sign up free: https://app.contioreach.com/signup?ref=cli&fw=next
│    2. Copy your API key into .env.local
│
└  Happy publishing!

Options

Works with npm create contioreach-blog, pnpm create contioreach-blog, yarn create contioreach-blog and bun create contioreach-blog too — dependencies are installed with whichever one ran it.

What it does

1. Downloads the framework's starter from github.com/contioreach.
2. Copies the starter's .env.example to .env.local (Next.js) or .env (everything else). That file already holds the read-only key of the ContioReach demo workspace.
3. Renames the project in package.json.
4. Installs dependencies.

The publish webhook route is already part of every starter (/api/revalidate/all). REVALIDATION_SECRET stays empty: it is generated in your own dashboard when you set the webhook up, and the route rejects every call until then.

The demo key is not hard-coded in the CLI. It lives in each starter's .env.example (and DEMO_API_KEY constant), so rotating it is a commit to the starters and every CLI version picks it up.

The demo banner

Every starter shows a banner above the site header while CMS_API_KEY is the demo key — on a deployed site too, so nobody launches a public blog on demo content by accident. The check runs on the server; the browser only ever gets a status, never the key. The close button hides it for the browser session.

Paste your own key and restart, and the banner goes away by itself. If ContioReach rejects the key, the banner turns into an "Invalid API key" notice instead.

When something goes wrong

Develop

npm install
npm test
node bin/create-contioreach-blog.js my-blog --no-install