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Standard Installation

This guide covers installing Thelia 3 on a standard PHP/MySQL environment without Docker.

Recommended for development

For local development, use DDEV. It gives a faster and more consistent setup.

Prerequisites​

PHP 8.3, 8.4 or 8.5​

php -v
# PHP 8.3.x (cli) ...

Thelia 3 supports PHP 8.3, 8.4 and 8.5, and 8.3 is recommended. All three are covered by the test matrix.

Required extensions:

php -m | grep -E "pdo_mysql|openssl|intl|gd|curl|dom"

All of these should be present: pdo_mysql, openssl, intl, gd, curl, dom.

PHP configuration (php.ini):

memory_limit = 256M
post_max_size = 20M
upload_max_filesize = 10M
date.timezone = Europe/Paris

Composer 2+​

composer --version

A GitHub token for Composer​

Thelia publishes its Symfony Flex recipes in the thelia/thelia-recipes repository, and Composer reads them through the GitHub API. Without a token that API answers with a rate limit. Flex then falls back on auto-generated recipes without reporting anything: the config/packages/*.yaml files the recipes carry are never written, and the theme bundles they register never reach config/bundles.php. The install fails much later, on a message that says nothing about recipes:

You must either configure a "public_key" or a "secret_key"

That message comes from lexik/jwt-authentication-bundle, whose configuration file was one of the recipes that never ran.

Create a token on github.com/settings/tokens. No scope is needed, the recipes are public. Give it to Composer once, before installing anything:

composer config --global github-oauth.github.com <your-token>

The value is written to your global auth.json. After composer install, check that config/packages/lexik_jwt_authentication.yaml exists. If it does not, the recipes did not run.

Database​

MariaDB 10.11 or later (recommended), or MySQL 8.x:

CREATE DATABASE thelia CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;
CREATE USER 'thelia'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'your_password';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON thelia.* TO 'thelia'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Installation steps​

1. Get the code​

From GitHub (development):

git clone https://github.com/thelia/thelia.git
cd thelia

With Composer (project):

composer create-project thelia/thelia-project my-shop
cd my-shop

2. Install dependencies​

composer install

3. Install Thelia​

bin/install is a standalone script that sets up the database, registers modules, and configures templates. Database credentials can be passed either as CLI options or as environment variables:

php bin/install --database_host=localhost --database_name=thelia \
    --database_user=thelia --database_password=your_password \
    --frontoffice_theme=flexy

With demo data and admin user​

php bin/install \
    --database_host=localhost --database_name=thelia \
    --database_user=thelia --database_password=your_password \
    --frontoffice_theme=flexy \
    --with-demo \
    --with-admin \
    --admin_login=admin \
    --admin_password=admin123 \
    --admin_email=admin@example.com
The back-office theme defaults to default-twig

--backoffice_theme defaults to default-twig, the Twig back-office, so most installs do not need to pass it. Pass --backoffice_theme=default only if you deliberately want the legacy Smarty admin.

All options​

Database credentials. Each setting is resolved as CLI option, then environment variable, then default. Host and name are required.

OptionVariableDefaultDescription
--database_hostDATABASE_HOST-Database hostname
--database_portDATABASE_PORT3306Database port
--database_nameDATABASE_NAME-Database name
--database_userDATABASE_USER-Database user
--database_passwordDATABASE_PASSWORD-Database password

Themes and setup:

OptionDefaultDescription
--frontoffice_themeflexyFront-office template
--backoffice_themedefault-twigBack-office template (default is the legacy Smarty back-office)
--pdf_themedefaultPDF template
--email_themedefaultEmail template
--with-demo-Import demo catalog
--skip-demo-images-With --with-demo, import the catalog without its images
--with-admin-Create admin user
--strict-themes-Remove the bundles of the templates you did not select
--admin_logintheliaAdmin username
--admin_passwordtheliaAdmin password
--admin_first_nameAdminAdmin first name
--admin_last_nameTheliaAdmin last name
--admin_emailadmin@thelia.netAdmin email

See Install Reference for what --skip-demo-images and --strict-themes do.

4. Assets​

There is no manual step. bin/install runs importmap:install and tailwind:build for the active front-office template, and sass:build for the back-office stylesheet, and skips whichever command the installed templates do not provide. Both the storefront and /admin are ready when the installer returns. The Smarty back-office template (default) needs no build step either.

5. Start the development server​

php -S localhost:8000 -t public

6. Access your site​

Post-Installation​

Create admin user (if not created during install)​

php Thelia admin:create

Clear cache​

php Thelia cache:clear

Production setup​

Web server configuration​

Environment mode​

Set production mode in .env.local:

APP_ENV=prod
APP_DEBUG=0

Cache and assets​

php Thelia cache:clear --env=prod
php Thelia cache:warmup --env=prod

Useful commands​

php Thelia cache:clear
php Thelia admin:create
php Thelia module:list
php Thelia module:activate ModuleName
php Thelia module:deactivate ModuleName
php Thelia module:refresh

Troubleshooting​

Memory limit error​

php -d memory_limit=512M bin/install

Permission denied​

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data var/
chmod -R 755 var/cache var/log

Database connection error​

Verify credentials and ensure the MySQL user has proper permissions:

GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON thelia.* TO 'thelia'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Next steps​