I Failed to Create a Shopify Theme from Scratch

Probably this will be a series - Creating Shopify Theme with AI ✍️

TL;DR 😊

If you are new to creating a Shopify theme, clone the skeleton theme to start. It saves time, avoids missing files, and keeps the project simple.

Beginning

I was curious about Shopify, but I hesitated to study Liquid even though I already knew the Shopify developer market is kinda huge.

When my friend asked me to help with her e-commerce site, we compared a few options.

My first idea was Square because her shop already uses it for payments. But when she researched it, some features were missing for her needs. She checked Shopify and found the features she wanted. So we picked Shopify for the project.

Why I'm creating theme from scratch

I explored default themes and realized they offer too many settings for one simple section.

Because default themes are fully customizable, you can adjust almost anything. That level of customization confused me and felt overwhelming. And my friend is not familiar with any of that.

My goal is to let my friend update the Shopify theme easily. So the default theme was no longer an option.

Liquid vs Remix

As a React developer, building with Remix feels easier (I am talking about v2, not v3). But this is my first time using Shopify, and I was unsure how much we could customize in the admin panel if I used Remix. Since my goal was creating an easy-to-use theme for my friend, I decided to study Liquid.

Around early 2025, one of my coworkers was very passionate about the Cursor editor. He kept telling me about it. I decided this was a perfect moment to try Cursor. (This was another reason I chose Liquid.)

First hurdles

At first, I watched several YouTube videos about Shopify theme development. At a glance, it did not look too complicated. So I just started development.

I followed the official tutorial.

1. Install CLI

2. Create partner account

3. Create a store

4. Initialize theme

Everything was fine up to this point.

I learned the hard way that the theme will not run unless you keep certain files and directories. I struggled to start the Shopify server because I missed some required directories and files.

After a few rounds of trial and error, I finally managed to start a local development server. 🎉 But getting the server running was just the beginning. Things got messy as I continued building the theme.

The messy middle

I worked on the theme little by little between other jobs. I kept referring to the Dawn theme, which has a lot of complex code. I also used the Cursor editor to build pages and features.

The result became too complicated. At first, I was just experimenting, but as the code grew, it became messy. After a few months, I realized that key files were still missing to run the shop.

At that moment, I felt I needed to start over... 😵‍💫

Skeleton theme

I did not know that Shopify released the Skeleton theme in May 2025. (Maybe it was there before. I just didn't know.) When I ran shopify theme init again, it offered me Skeleton theme which is a minimal theme (plus some rules for the IDEs).

It solved my biggest problem: required files. Now I only need to customize the pages.

Since I reset my theme to the Skeleton theme, I needed to add snippets and sections again, but that was not a big issue. I just had to add simplified code carefully.

Conclusion ✨

I failed my first attempt at building a Shopify theme from scratch, but the Skeleton theme gave me a fresh start. Nothing fancy––just a minimal theme.If you're starting your first Shopify theme, don't make the same mistake I did.😉 Start with the Skeleton theme, so you can focus on customization instead of configuration.