Templates
Pick the app or website starter, pass the template param, and rebuild instead of stretching.
Every create_app seeds from one of two pinned starters. The default is app. Pass template: "website" for the content-site starter. Both build with bun run build and deploy through the same Pipeline.
Brand the app at creation
Pass name (1–60 chars) and description (1–160 chars) to create_app: both land in the repo-root brand.json with a deterministic accent colour, and the app’s pages, manifest and icons pick them up. Leave them out and the name defaults to the slug title-cased (grocery-list → Grocery List) with the description matching it. Both are content-checked like the slug, with the same refusal.
brand.json is the one place to rename or rebrand an app: edit it with commit, never the generated outputs.
Pick the right starter
| Build | Template |
|---|---|
| Landing page, portfolio, blog, event page | website |
| Grocery list, dashboard, anything with accounts or live data | app |
| Starts static, might grow accounts later | app — a site that outgrows islands wants loaders and actions, not more of them |
Both live in ryuzcorp/outer-templates: templates/app/ and templates/website/. A new app gets a copy of one folder as its first commit, so its repo starts at the project root. The person-facing picker lives at Pick a template.
Know what each ships
The app template serves server-rendered Ilha pages in pages/ with loaders + actions on D1 and useForm for mutations. Read the template AGENTS.md first, then the Ilha and Void guides before writing code.
The website template serves mostly static, prerendered Astro pages with Ilha islands for interactive parts, at most one D1 database and one R2 bucket. Read its AGENTS.md first, then Website.
Rebuild, never stretch
A website that needs auth, live collaboration, or a second database table has outgrown the website template. Rebuild it on app rather than stretching server routes into an application.