Ollie Theme Academy

Understanding Settings

Exercise Overview – Creating starter theme files

Ready to build your first block theme from scratch? This exercise walks you through creating the absolute minimum files needed to get WordPress to recognize your theme as a valid block theme.

You’ll create just three essential files that serve as your foundation. Once these are in place, WordPress will enable the site editor and you’ll have access to all the full site editing features.

Don’t worry about the frontend showing an error message initially – that’s expected with empty template files. The goal here is getting the basic structure in place so you can start building through the site editor interface.

This hands-on approach gives you a solid understanding of what makes a block theme work at its core.

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