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Quick Start

Summary

Use this tutorial to get SkyCMS running locally and complete one full publish cycle.

Outcome

After completing this tutorial, you will be able to:

  • run SkyCMS locally,
  • complete first-time setup,
  • create and publish a page,
  • verify live output and core dependencies.

Prerequisites

  • .NET SDK compatible with the SkyCMS solution.
  • A database connection string.
  • A storage connection string.
  • Local clone of the SkyCMS solution.

If you need detailed setup values first, use:

Steps

  1. Configure required environment variables.

Replace the example values below with your own database and storage values:

$env:CosmosAllowSetup = "true"
$env:ConnectionStrings__ApplicationDbContextConnection = "Data Source=D:\\data\\cosmoscms.db"
$env:ConnectionStrings__StorageConnectionString = "Bucket=my-bucket;Region=us-east-1;KeyId=...;Key=...;"
$env:AzureBlobStorageEndPoint = "/"
$env:CosmosPublisherUrl = "http://localhost:5000"
  1. Start the editor application.

From the SkyCMS source root:

dotnet run --project Sky.Editor.csproj

  1. Complete first-time setup.

  2. Open http://localhost:5000/___setup.

  3. Follow setup wizard steps.

  4. Create your initial admin account.

  5. Create and publish a test page.

  6. Sign in to the editor.

  7. Create a simple page with clear text, such as "Quick Start Test".

  8. Publish the page.

  9. Verify end-to-end behavior.

  10. Confirm the page renders at the expected URL.

  11. Confirm linked assets load successfully.
  12. Confirm file upload works from the editor.

Checkpoints

  • Setup wizard completes without errors.
  • Admin login succeeds.
  • First page is visible after publish.
  • No blocking errors in local logs during publish.

For AI consumers

If you are grounding an AI assistant or retrieval workflow on SkyCMS documentation, start with:

Next steps