BigCommerce Stencil Technology Stack

Plan: Stencil Developer

Lesson 3 of 28 · 5 min

Stencil Technology Stack

The Stencil technology stack allows developers to create dynamic, templated customizations across a BigCommerce storefront.

BigCommerce Stencil Technology Stack includes:

  • Node.js - a JavaScript runtime environment that provides the necessary infrastructure for running Stencil CLI
  • Handlebars - a templating language used to create dynamic content in Stencil themes
  • HTML - the standard markup language used to create the structure of Stencil themes
  • SCSS - a preprocessor for CSS that provides additional functionality and ease of use
  • YAML - a human-readable data serialization language used to configure Stencil themes

Stencil CLI enables developers to locally develop and customize any Stencil theme without impacting a merchant’s live storefront during the development process. When developing locally, developers can access a real-time Browsersync preview and testing.

Stencil CLI runs on the Node.js runtime environment. Installing Node.js also provides the required npm package manager.

Before you begin: Customizing Stencil themes requires in-depth knowledge of web development and the use of the Stencil CLI framework.

Per our Design Policy, our technical support team is unable to provide assistance with custom themes. See our BigCommerce developer articles for support resources.