The fastest way to get started with Domma CMS is via the npx scaffolder. You will need Node.js 18+ and npm 7+ installed on your machine.

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18 or higher — nodejs.org
• npm 7 or higher (bundled with Node.js)
• A terminal / command prompt

Create a new project

Run the following command, replacing my-site with your desired project name:

npx domma-cms my-site

This single command will:

1. Scaffold a new Domma CMS project into the my-site/ directory
2. Install all npm dependencies automatically
3. Launch the interactive Setup Wizard to configure your site
4. Start the development server once setup is complete

Specifying a directory name

Pass a project name to scaffold directly into a named directory:

npx domma-cms my-blog
npx domma-cms portfolio
npx domma-cms company-site

After installation, open your browser and navigate to http://localhost:4096 to see your new site, and http://localhost:4096/admin to access the admin panel.

The Setup Wizard runs automatically after npm install completes. It guides you through the essential configuration steps needed to get your site up and running.

What the wizard configures

Admin Account

You will be prompted to enter an email address and password for the initial administrator account. Passwords are hashed using bcrypt (12 rounds) before storage — your plaintext password is never persisted.

Site Identity

Set your site's title and tagline. These are saved to config/site.json and are available throughout your templates as {{site.title}} and {{site.tagline}}.

Theme Selection

Choose from 24 built-in Domma themes — 12 families, each with a dark and light variant:

Security

A cryptographically random JWT_SECRET is generated automatically and written to your .env file. You do not need to set this manually.

A freshly scaffolded Domma CMS project has the following layout:

my-site/
├── admin/              # Domma SPA admin panel (read-only)
├── config/             # Site configuration files
│   ├── site.json       #   Global site settings (title, tagline, theme)
│   ├── navigation.json #   Primary navigation structure
│   └── plugins.json    #   Enabled plugins and their options
├── content/
│   └── pages/          # Markdown content files (one file per page)
├── media/              # Uploaded media files (images, PDFs, etc.)
├── plugins/            # Custom and third-party plugins
├── server/             # Fastify server internals (edit with care)
├── .env                # Environment variables (gitignored)
├── package.json
└── server.js           # Entry point — run this to start the server

Key directories explained

Domma CMS is designed to run on any standard Node.js hosting environment. The core system has minimal requirements.

Default port

Domma CMS listens on port 4096 by default. This can be changed by setting PORT in your .env file. For production deployments behind a reverse proxy (nginx, Caddy, etc.), it is recommended to keep the default internal port and expose only 80/443 externally.

Out of the box, Domma CMS operates in File-Only Mode — no database required. All content, collections, and form submissions are stored as flat files on disk.

What is stored where?

Is it right for your project?

File-Only Mode is an excellent choice for:

• Blogs, documentation sites, and portfolios
• Sites with up to approximately 10,000 pages
• Teams that want their content version-controlled alongside code
• Deployments to shared hosting or environments without a database
• Rapid prototyping and proof-of-concept projects

For sites that require advanced querying, large-scale collections, or complex workflow automation, Pro Mode unlocks MongoDB-backed storage and additional capabilities.

Enabling Pro Mode

First, ensure MongoDB 6+ is running and accessible, then run:

npm run pro

The wizard will prompt for your MongoDB connection string and write it to .env:

MONGO_URI=mongodb://localhost:27017/domma-cms

What Pro Mode unlocks

Seed sample data

To populate your MongoDB instance with example content and collections:

npm run seed

All common tasks are available as npm scripts. Run them from the root of your project directory.

Domma CMS uses a .env file in the project root to manage secrets and environment-specific settings. This file is automatically created by the Setup Wizard and is included in .gitignore by default.

Default .env contents

# ─── Server ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
PORT=4096                    # Port the server listens on (default: 4096)
NODE_ENV=production          # 'development' enables verbose logging and hot reload

# ─── Security ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
JWT_SECRET=<auto-generated>  # Secret key for signing JWTs — do not change after launch

# ─── Pro Mode (optional) ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────
MONGO_URI=                   # MongoDB connection string — leave blank for File-Only Mode

Variable reference