Gridsome is a Vue.js-powered static site generator that allows you to build blazing-fast websites and apps. It leverages GraphQL to query data from various sources and provides features like hot reloading, progressive images, and automatic page prefetching. Here’s a step-by-step tutorial to get you started with Gridsome:

1. Installation

First, ensure you have Node.js and npm installed on your system. Then, you can install Gridsome globally or locally within your project:

npm install -g @gridsome/cli

2. Project Setup

Create a new directory for your Gridsome project and navigate into it:

mkdir my-gridsome-project
cd my-gridsome-project

3. Initialize Project

Initialize your Gridsome project:

gridsome create my-gridsome-project

This command will create a new Gridsome project in the my-gridsome-project directory.

4. Run Development Server

Navigate into your project directory:

cd my-gridsome-project

Then, start the development server:

gridsome develop

This will compile your project and start a local development server. You can access your Gridsome site at http://localhost:8080.

5. Explore Starter Content

Gridsome provides a starter content structure with some example pages and components. Explore the files in the src/pages directory to see how pages are structured.

6. Customize Content

You can customize the content of your website by editing the Markdown, JSON, or YAML files in the src/pages directory. You can also create new pages and components as needed.

7. Query Data with GraphQL

Gridsome uses GraphQL to query data from various sources, including Markdown files, JSON files, APIs, and databases. You can define GraphQL queries in your components to fetch data and display it on your pages.

8. Configure Plugins

Gridsome supports plugins for adding functionality to your site, such as source plugins for pulling in data, transformer plugins for processing data, and plugin for adding additional features like SEO, analytics, etc. You can install plugins via npm and configure them in the gridsome.config.js file.

9. Build Your Site

Once you’re satisfied with your website, you can build it for production:

gridsome build

This command will generate a static version of your website in the dist directory, optimized for performance.

10. Deploy Your Site

You can deploy your Gridsome site to various hosting platforms, including Netlify, Vercel, GitHub Pages, etc. Simply upload the contents of the dist directory to your hosting provider.

That’s a basic overview of getting started with Gridsome. From here, you can explore its rich ecosystem of plugins, themes, and community-contributed starters to build powerful and feature-rich static websites and apps.