---
title: "What is this starter?"
publishedDate: "2023-07-05"
lastUpdatedDate: "2023-07-05"
tags:
  - starter
  - docs
  - development
description: "The motivation and goals of this starter template. What it is and what it is not."
status: published
series:
  order: 0
  title: "Using this template"
---

<Tweet id="1669765783449382912" />

An open source blogging (digital gardening) template for developers using [Next.js](https://nextjs.org/) app router, MDX, [Contentlayer](https://contentlayer.dev/), [Tailwind CSS](https://tailwindcss.com/), [@shadcn/ui](https://ui.shadcn.com/) , [Lucide Icons](https://lucide.dev/icons), and more.

If you love this template and/or use it, please give it a star on GitHub. This will help more people discover it, thus help improving the template.

![GitHub Repo stars](https://img.shields.io/github/stars/thedevdavid/digital-garden?style=social)

**Note: This project is always evolving and it's far from being perfect or even done.** I'm always open to suggestions and contributions. Feel free to open an issue or a PR if you have any ideas or suggestions.[^1]: Big note.

## Motivation

As a developer who creates content, I want to have a blog & digital garden where I can share my thoughts and ideas with the world. Now, there's not really a "perfect solution" for this currently. With included analytics, SEO, email subscriptions, modern tooling, simple design, etc. We either have to build one from scratch, use a design template and code the features, or use a CMS/no-code tool.

So I decided to build a solution that I would use myself. This is the result.

## Examples

- [https://davidlevai.com/](https://davidlevai.com/)

**Create a PR and add your blog to this list if you're using the template!**

## Features & Roadmap

- [x] Basic functionality of reading pages and posts
- [x] Basic design dark/light mode
- [x] MDX code highlighting
- [x] Readme.md
- [x] `robots.txt` & `sitemap.xml`
- [x] RSS Feed
- [x] Reading time estimate
- [x] LICENSE
- [x] contributing.md
- [x] MDX components (TOC & footnotes)
- [x] general config & metadata (author, URL, socials, etc.)
- [x] uses page
- [x] Link in bio page
- [x] OG image generation
- [x] projects page
- [x] about section on homepage
- [x] search & command bar
- [x] Analytics: Vercel, Umami
- [x] Post series
- [x] Not found page
- [x] contributing docs
- [x] Docs refresh
- [ ] Social sharing buttons
- [ ] newsletter integration (form, api route, keys, welcome page, previous issues)
- [ ] Other analytics providers (fathom, simplelytics, plausible, etc)
- [ ] Tags, categories
- [ ] Post series page
- [ ] Layouts/templates system
- [ ] hero title and subtitle text HTML support(?)
- [ ] Design improvements (whitespace, layout, etc.)
- [ ] error, and loading pages
- [ ] Code preview component
- [ ] Code highlight improvements (copy code, theme)
- [ ] `manifest.json`
- [ ] Hidden content (behind email subscription)
- [ ] 100 lighthouse score
- [ ] Command bar fuzzy search in content
- [ ] Pagination
- [ ] SEO improvements
- [ ] Accessibility audit
- [ ] TypeScript fixes
- [ ] Redesign uses page
- [ ] Redesign projects page
- [ ] general refactor
- [ ] general cleanup
- [ ] implement content security policies
- [ ] implement a videoask-like solution for the hero section
- [ ] RSS feed improvements (image, description, etc.)
- [ ] multi-author support (?)
- [ ] Post like counter (?)
- [ ] Visitor counter (?)
- [ ] code playground instead of code highlighting (?)
- [ ] Commenting system (?)
- [ ] keyboard-based navigation with hotkeys (?)
- [ ] multilang support (?)

## Contributing

### Contributors

- @thedevdavid
- @br4adam

This project is from developers for developers. All contributions are welcome! Please feel free to:

- Report a bug
- Discuss the current state and ideas for improvements
- Submit a fix
- Propose new features

### How?

1. Fork the repo and create your branch from `develop`.
2. Add your code.
3. Update the documentation.
4. Make sure your code lints and the app builds.
5. Open pull request to `develop` branch.

Any contributions you make will be under the MIT Software License. In short, when you submit code changes, your submissions are understood to be under the same [MIT License](http://choosealicense.com/licenses/mit/) that covers the project. Code of Conduct can be found [here](https://gist.github.com/thedevdavid/08e306cee9dc1b6b7f3c209827277a82).

## Inspiration & Mentions

- [Delba Oliveira Personal Blog](https://github.com/delbaoliveira/website) - Using and structuring table of contents with Contentlayer
- [timlrx/tailwind-nextjs-starter-blog](https://github.com/timlrx/tailwind-nextjs-starter-blog) - Idea

## Support

If you love this template and/or use it, please give it a star on GitHub.

---

This post will be the first part of a series of posts that will explain how to use this starter template. This post will explain what this starter template is and what it is not.

[^1]: Yep, this is a footnote
