# Shoplazza CLI theme development overview

> Use Shoplazza CLI for theme development: development themes, hot-reload previews, scaffolding from Nova 2023, and pushing or publishing from the command line.

Shoplazza CLI is a command-line interface tool that helps you build Shoplazza themes and apps. This document explains how to use Shoplazza CLI for theme development.

For the full CLI documentation (app development, API commands, shortcuts, and more), refer to the [Shoplazza CLI documentation](/docs/app/developer-tools/shoplazza-cli/).

## Features

Shoplazza CLI accelerates your theme development process with the following features:

* Safely preview, test, and share changes to themes using development themes
* Hot reload CSS and section changes, or automatically refresh a page on file change, when previewing a theme
* Initialize a new theme using [Nova 2023](../nova-2023) as a starting point
* Push and publish themes from the command line

## Development themes

Development themes are temporary, hidden themes that are connected to the Shoplazza store that you're using for development. When you connect your theme to a store as a development theme, you can use that store's data for local testing.

You can create a development theme using the [shoplazza themes serve](./theme-commands#serve) command.

Your development theme is deleted when you run `shoplazza auth logout`. If you want a preview link for the theme that can be accessed after you log out, then you should [push](./theme-commands#push) your development theme to an unpublished theme on your store.

Your development theme can be used to perform the following tasks:

* View changes in real-time to a theme that you're developing locally
* Customize and interact with the theme using the Shoplazza admin theme editor
* Share a password-protected preview of the theme with other developers

## Installation

To learn how to install Shoplazza CLI on Windows, macOS, or Linux, refer to [Install Shoplazza CLI](/docs/app/developer-tools/shoplazza-cli/install).

## Getting started

## Command reference

Refer to the [Theme commands](./theme-commands) to explore the theme commands available in Shoplazza CLI.

For the full command reference (all topics), see the [CLI command reference](/docs/app/developer-tools/shoplazza-cli/commands/).

## Authentication

Shoplazza CLI v2 uses OAuth 2.0. To authenticate:

```shell
shoplazza auth login --store-domain my-store.myshoplaza.com --domain themes
```

For full authentication details, see [Authentication](/docs/app/developer-tools/shoplazza-cli/authentication).

### Switching between stores

```shell
shoplazza auth store use --store-domain another-store.myshoplaza.com
```

### Logging out

```shell
shoplazza auth logout
```

## Directory structure

You can run certain theme commands, such as `shoplazza themes serve`, only if the directory you're using matches the default Shoplazza theme [directory structure](/docs/theme/architecture/overview#directory-structure-and-component-types).

```text
└── project
    ├── assets
    ├── config
    ├── layout
    ├── locales
    ├── sections
    ├── snippets
    └── templates
        └── customers
```

## Upgrade

```shell
npm update -g shoplazza-cli
```

To check your CLI version:

```shell
shoplazza version
```