Getting Started with Astro

Welcome to the world of Astro, a modern static site generator that’s revolutionizing how we build for the web. In this guide, we’ll explore what makes Astro unique and how you can leverage its power for your projects.

Why Astro?

Astro takes a different approach than traditional JavaScript frameworks:

• Zero JavaScript by default: Ship only the JavaScript you need
• Island Architecture: Interactive components only where you need them
• Content-focused: Built for blogs, documentation, and marketing sites
• Framework agnostic: Use React, Vue, Svelte, or vanilla JS

Key Features

1. Partial Hydration

Astro’s island architecture means your pages load incredibly fast. Only the interactive parts of your page hydrate with JavaScript, while the rest stays as static HTML.

2. Content Collections

Content collections provide a type-safe way to manage your content:

import { defineCollection, z } from 'astro:content';

const posts = defineCollection({
  schema: z.object({
    title: z.string(),
    excerpt: z.string(),
    publishDate: z.coerce.date(),
  }),
});

3. Built-in Performance

Astro sites score highly on Core Web Vitals out of the box. No optimization tricks needed.

Quick Start

Getting started is simple:

npm create astro@latest
cd my-project
npm run dev

That’s it! You now have a development server running at localhost:4321.

What’s Next?

This boilerplate includes everything you need for a production-ready website:

• Keystatic CMS for content management
• Tailwind CSS v4 for styling
• Dark mode with smooth transitions
• SEO optimization built-in

Ready to build something amazing? Let’s get started!