Kick off your project with this default boilerplate. This starter ships with the main Gatsby configuration files you might need to get up and running blazing fast with the blazing fast app generator for React.

Have another more specific idea? You may want to check out our vibrant collection of official and community-created starters.

1. Create a Gatsby site.

   Use the Gatsby CLI to create a new site, specifying the default starter.

   # create a new Gatsby site using the default starter
   gatsby new my-default-starter https://github.com/gatsbyjs/gatsby-starter-default

2. Start developing.

   Navigate into your new site’s directory and start it up.

   cd my-default-starter/
   gatsby develop

3. Open the source code and start editing!

   Your site is now running at http://localhost:8000!

   Note: You'll also see a second link: http://localhost:8000/___graphql. This is a tool you can use to experiment with querying your data. Learn more about using this tool in the Gatsby tutorial.

   Open the my-default-starter directory in your code editor of choice and edit src/pages/index.js. Save your changes and the browser will update in real time!

A quick look at the top-level files and directories you'll see in a Gatsby project.

.
├── node_modules
├── src
├── .gitignore
├── .prettierrc
├── gatsby-browser.js
├── gatsby-config.js
├── gatsby-node.js
├── gatsby-ssr.js
├── LICENSE
├── package-lock.json
├── package.json
└── README.md

1. /node_modules: This directory contains all of the modules of code that your project depends on (npm packages) are automatically installed.

2. /src: This directory will contain all of the code related to what you will see on the front-end of your site (what you see in the browser) such as your site header or a page template. src is a convention for “source code”.

3. .gitignore: This file tells git which files it should not track / not maintain a version history for.

4. .prettierrc: This is a configuration file for Prettier. Prettier is a tool to help keep the formatting of your code consistent.

5. gatsby-browser.js: This file is where Gatsby expects to find any usage of the Gatsby browser APIs (if any). These allow customization/extension of default Gatsby settings affecting the browser.

6. gatsby-config.js: This is the main configuration file for a Gatsby site. This is where you can specify information about your site (metadata) like the site title and description, which Gatsby plugins you’d like to include, etc. (Check out the config docs for more detail).

7. gatsby-node.js: This file is where Gatsby expects to find any usage of the Gatsby Node APIs (if any). These allow customization/extension of default Gatsby settings affecting pieces of the site build process.

8. gatsby-ssr.js: This file is where Gatsby expects to find any usage of the Gatsby server-side rendering APIs (if any). These allow customization of default Gatsby settings affecting server-side rendering.

9. LICENSE: Gatsby is licensed under the MIT license.

10. package-lock.json (See package.json below, first). This is an automatically generated file based on the exact versions of your npm dependencies that were installed for your project. (You won’t change this file directly).

11. package.json: A manifest file for Node.js projects, which includes things like metadata (the project’s name, author, etc). This manifest is how npm knows which packages to install for your project.

12. README.md: A text file containing useful reference information about your project.

Looking for more guidance? Full documentation for Gatsby lives on the website. Here are some places to start:

• For most developers, we recommend starting with our in-depth tutorial for creating a site with Gatsby. It starts with zero assumptions about your level of ability and walks through every step of the process.

• To dive straight into code samples, head to our documentation. In particular, check out the Guides, API Reference, and Advanced Tutorials sections in the sidebar.