Summit Themes

Getting started with Summit's Themes

Welcome to Summit Themes

Summit Themes are complete, production-ready websites for local service businesses — HVAC, electrical, plumbing, roofing, lawn care, and more trades on the way. A theme is not a blank starter or a generic template you have to wire up yourself: it is a full contractor website with every page, section, and content model already built, so you make it yours in an afternoon and launch fast — saving thousands versus a custom build.

Every theme is built on Astro with static output (no client-side JavaScript framework) and Tailwind CSS v4, configured entirely in CSS through @theme tokens — there is no tailwind.config file. All of your site content is driven by a single config file, src/data/business.json, and the whole project is tuned for perfect Lighthouse scores and full responsiveness. Themes are updated regularly to track the latest Astro and Tailwind best practices.

Quick Start Guide

1. Get Full Access

One purchase of $99 unlocks every current and future Summit theme. It is a one-time payment — no subscriptions — and includes lifetime use, lifetime updates, and Discord and email support. One license covers one production website.

2. Access your purchase

Themes are delivered as private GitHub repository access through Polar checkout. Once your purchase completes you are granted access to the theme repositories, so you can clone or download any theme and start building.

3. Setup requirements

Before getting started, ensure you have:

  • Node.js 18 or higher
  • Text editor (VS Code with the official Astro extension recommended)
  • Terminal access for the Astro CLI commands

4. Get the theme

  1. Open the theme repository on GitHub
    Once your Polar purchase grants access, open the theme repo you want to use.
    From there you can clone or download the code.

  2. Clone or download

    • To keep your own working copy under version control, clone the repository.
    • If you just want the files, click Download ZIP.

  3. Open the repository page

    • Navigate to the repo on GitHub (e.g., https://github.com/summit-themes/your-theme).
    • On the repo page, locate the green “Code” button (above the file list, top-right).

  4. Open the clone menu See widget below

    • Click the “Code” button.
    • A dropdown will appear, this is the widget shown underneath.
    • Here you’ll see options for Local (default), Codespaces, and tabs for HTTPS / SSH / GitHub CLI.
  1. Copy the HTTPS clone URL
    • In the Local → HTTPS tab, copy the URL. Example:
https://github.com/summit-themes/****.git
  • Use the clipboard icon to copy it quickly.
  1. Clone with Git
    • Open your terminal and run:
git clone https://github.com/summit-themes/your-theme.git
  • Replace the URL with the one you copied.
  1. (Optional) Update all dependencies to their latest versions using npm-check-updates (ncu)

    ncu is a command-line tool that helps you check for newer versions of your npm dependencies and update your package.json accordingly.
    To install npm-check-updates globally, run:

npm install -g npm-check-updates
  1. Install dependencies
  1. Start the development server
    • Run:
npm run dev
  • This starts Astro and serves the theme in your browser at http://localhost:4321 with live reload.

Customize Your Site

Everything on the site — business name, phone, services, service areas, hours, reviews, and more — is driven by one file: src/data/business.json. There are three ways to edit it:

  1. Directly — it is plain JSON, so open src/data/business.json and change the values to match your business.
  2. With an AI coding agent — every theme ships an llms.txt map and a tuned CLAUDE.md / AGENTS.md so an AI editor (Claude Code, Cursor) can rebrand and customize the whole site from a single prompt. Point your agent at the theme, ask it to rebrand for your business, and it edits business.json and the brand color for you — then run npm run build.
  3. With an optional visual CMS — if a non-technical client needs to edit content, follow the opt-in Sanity addon guide (~30-minute install) to swap the JSON data source for Sanity. Sanity is optional and never bundled.

Build for Production

To generate a production build, run:

npm run build

The output will be created in the dist/ directory.

To preview the production build locally, run:

npm run preview

Tip: Run npm run preview before deploying to confirm everything works correctly in the production build.

5. Deploy Your Site

Because the theme outputs a fully static dist/ folder, you can host it anywhere static files are served:

  • Cloudflare Pages: Fast global edge hosting — upload the dist/ folder or connect your repo.
  • Any static host: Netlify, Vercel, GitHub Pages, or your own server all work the same way — point them at the build output.
Getting Started