Every way to start a Hollware project, which release to take, and what the project holds.

Install Hollware

A Hollware is a project of yours: a small Worker that depends on the packages of Hollware, with its own wrangler.jsonc. npm create hollware makes it. The Quickstart is the short way; this page is every way.

You need Node.js 24 or later. A Cloudflare account comes in when you deploy; everything before runs on your machine.

A project of its own

npm create hollware my-cms

It copies the starter, installs it, applies the migrations to a local database and makes your site, its owner and a first token. It asks nothing; what you would answer goes in options, after -- with npm:

Option	What it chooses	Default
`--name <name>`	The name of the Worker and of its database	the name of the directory
`--site <key>`	The key of your site; it never changes	`my-site`
`--preset blog \| docs \| empty`	What the site starts with	`blog`
`--locales en,es`	Its locales, the first one the default	`en`
`--pm npm \| pnpm`	Who installs	`npm`
`--token-file <path>`	Write the first token to a file, never to the screen
`--ip-addresses off \| hashed`, `--audit-retention-days <n>`	What the activity log keeps	`off`, forever
`--no-install`	Only copy the files: no install, no database, no site
`--no-git`	No `git init`
`--json`	One JSON object on stdout, for an agent or a script

npm create hollware my-cms -- --site acme --preset docs --locales en,es --token-file owner.token
pnpm create hollware my-cms --pm pnpm

Which release

Channel	What it is	Command
`latest`	The newest stable release	`npm create hollware my-cms`
`rc`	The next release, as a release candidate	`npm create hollware@rc my-cms`
An exact version	That release, always	`npm create hollware@1.0.0 my-cms`

create-hollware of a version makes a project of that same version: it pins hollware and @hollware/* to it exactly, and the tools it was tested with (wrangler, the Cloudflare plugins, Vite+, Vitest, TypeScript) to theirs. A project never moves on its own; you upgrade it when you choose.

pnpm, from version 11, installs nothing published less than a day ago (minimumReleaseAge). On the day of a release, pnpm create hollware takes the release before it, whole. Wait a day, or make your project with npm.

Inside a monorepo

Hollware can live next to the site that reads it, in one repository, as apps/cms beside apps/web. Make it without installing, then install from the root:

pnpm create hollware apps/cms --pm pnpm --no-install --no-git --name my-cms --site my-site

Then:

Remove apps/cms/pnpm-workspace.yaml: the root's is the one pnpm reads. Copy its allowBuilds (esbuild: true, workerd: false) into the root's.
Remove the overrides of apps/cms/package.json: they are for npm, which reads them only at the root.
Install from the root, then make the local database and your site from apps/cms:

pnpm install
cd apps/cms
pnpm exec hollware migrate --local
pnpm exec hollware init --site my-site --local --token-file owner.token

Every hollware command runs from apps/cms: the CLI works on the project of the current directory. A site in the same repository reads the deployed Hollware over a service binding, or over HTTP with a read token.

What the project holds

File	Whose	What it is
`src/worker.ts`	yours	The Worker: `createHollware()` builds it
`wrangler.jsonc`	yours	The Worker, its database, namespace, queues, bucket, public URL and domain
`vite.config.ts`, `vitest.config.ts`, `test/`	yours	The build, the local server and tests that run inside workerd
`AGENTS.md`	yours	What an agent working on the project needs to know
`worker-configuration.d.ts`	wrangler's	The types of the bindings; `npm run types` writes it
`node_modules/@hollware/server`	Hollware's	The code and the migrations of the database
`node_modules/@hollware/admin`	Hollware's	The admin, built

The files that are yours are made once and never rewritten by Hollware, so an upgrade of the packages leaves them as they are. When a release asks for a change in one of them, its release notes and the upgrade guide say which.

Your content and the structure of your sites live in the database, never in the project: the repository holds no content, and several sites share one project.

From another CMS

hollware import brings a directory of Markdown in, as drafts or published, and running it again changes nothing. It reads a plain layout of <collection>/<locale>/<slug>.md, or the content/ of a Nuxt Content site with --from nuxt-content. See the CLI.

Check it

npx hollware doctor

It checks the flags, the bindings, the built admin, the migrations and the owner, and says what to fix.