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Lyra Astro documentation

Getting started

Install Lyra, run it on your computer and publish your organisation's website, step by step.

Thanks for choosing Lyra. This guide takes you from the downloaded zip to your own site running on your computer. You don’t need to be a developer: pages, causes, campaigns and stories are all plain text files.

Requirements

  • Node.js 22.12 or newer. Check your version by typing node -v in a terminal. If you need to install or update it, download the LTS version from nodejs.org.
  • A code editor. VS Code is free and offers to install the Astro extension, which highlights mistakes as you type.

Install

  1. Unzip lyra-astro-v1.0.0.zip and move the lyra-astro folder wherever you keep your projects.
  2. Open a terminal in that folder (in VS Code: Terminal → New Terminal) and install everything Lyra needs:
npm install

Preview your site

npm run dev

Open http://localhost:4321 in your browser. Keep it open while you edit: the page updates every time you save a file.

The first time you run it, Lyra draws coloured placeholder images in place of the demo photos, which can’t be included in the download. See Colours, fonts and photos to add your own.

Make it yours

  1. Your organisation. Open src/site.config.ts and change the name, tagline, registration number, address, menus and social links. See Site settings.
  2. Your donations. Point the donate form at your provider (Givebutter, Donorbox, Stripe Payment Links and others). See Donations.
  3. Your work. Edit the causes, campaigns, events and stories in src/content/. See Causes and campaigns and Events, stories and team.
  4. Your pages. Each page is a list of blocks. Copy any block from the block library into a page. See Pages and blocks.
  5. Your forms. Connect the contact, volunteer and newsletter forms. See Forms and newsletter.
  6. Your languages. Lyra ships in English and Spanish. Keep, remove or add languages. See Languages.
  7. Your legal pages. Adapt privacy.md and terms.md in src/content/pages/ to your organisation and country.
  8. Your domain. Set site in astro.config.mjs to your address, for example https://yourcharity.org.

Publish

npm run build

This creates a dist folder containing your finished website and its search index. Deploying shows how to put it online for free.

Commands

Command What it does
npm install Installs what Lyra needs. Run it once, and again after updating.
npm run dev Starts the live preview at localhost:4321.
npm run build Builds the finished site into dist/ and builds the search index.
npm run preview Serves the built site so you can check it, including search, before publishing.
npm run check Checks your content and code for mistakes.