roots/sage

Sage is a starter theme for WordPress, the popular system used to build websites and blogs. A starter theme is not a finished design you switch on. It is a clean foundation that a developer builds a custom site on top of, so the work begins with organized, modern code instead of from scratch. What makes Sage different from a typical WordPress theme is the set of tools it brings along. It uses Laravel Blade, a templating system borrowed from the Laravel PHP framework, which lets developers write page layouts as small reusable pieces called components rather than one large tangled file. The connection to Laravel is handled by a companion project called Acorn, which lets the theme use Laravel features inside WordPress. For styling, Sage comes ready to use Tailwind CSS, an approach where you style pages by combining many small utility classes. For the build process, it uses Vite, a tool that compiles the JavaScript and CSS and refreshes the browser quickly while you work, so changes to styles show up almost immediately. Sage also supports the WordPress block editor out of the box, meaning it works with the modern drag and block content editing built into WordPress. The theme is made by Roots, which describes itself as an independent open source organization funded only by the developers who use its tools. The README points readers to the official documentation to install and get started, and notes that sponsoring Roots on GitHub funds the wider Roots ecosystem and unlocks access to a private Discord community. It also lists ways to follow development through Discord, the Roots Discourse forum, Twitter, the blog, and a newsletter. In short, Sage is aimed at developers who already build WordPress sites and want a more structured, modern workflow. It is a technical foundation, so it assumes familiarity with PHP and command line build tools rather than being a point and click theme for beginners.