ScratchStart Theme

A bare-bones, dependency-free WordPress starter theme. Ships without custom CSS, JavaScript or opinionated markup so page builders such as Elementor stay in full control and the site stays lightning fast.

Why

Most "minimal" WordPress themes still ship a stylesheet, header/footer markup, default post titles and a 404 template. When the real rendering is done by a page builder all of that becomes dead weight or, worse, fights the builder (double H1, doubled headers, leftover sidebars). ScratchStart goes further than Hello Elementor: by default the theme renders nothing beyond the document skeleton and a single <main id="main"> wrapper holding the_content(). Header, footer, post title, post meta, comments, sidebar and the archive loop are opt-in via filters.

Features

• No own CSS, no own JavaScript — builders such as Elementor or Bricks own the frontend.
• No theme-rendered chrome by default — <header>, <footer>, post title, post meta, sidebar, comments and the archive loop are opt-in via single-line filters.
• Optional WordPress core cleanup (disable emojis / wp-embed JS / block-library CSS / RSD/wlw/generator/REST/shortlink head links), all opt-in or via a single scratchstart_lightning_mode master switch.
• No 404.php: WordPress falls back to index.php so a builder's "Not Found" template can take over.
• Clean, escaped, translation-ready template files.
• wp_body_open() hook fired in the right place, skip-link and accessible <main id="main"> available on demand.
• Block-editor friendly: responsive-embeds, post-thumbnails, html5, title-tag, automatic-feed-links.
• Composer-installable as a wordpress-theme package.
• Automated GitHub Release builds a ready-to-install ZIP.

Requirements

• WordPress 6.4 or newer (tested up to 6.9)
• PHP 8.4 or newer

Installation

Option A — ZIP from GitHub Releases

1. Grab scratchstart.zip from the latest GitHub Release.
2. In WordPress admin: Appearance → Themes → Add New → Upload Theme.
3. Upload the ZIP and activate.

Option B — Composer (Bedrock, composer-managed WP, etc.)

composer require dennismenken/scratchstart-theme

composer/installers places the theme under wp-content/themes/scratchstart/. If the repository is not on Packagist yet, add it as a VCS repository:

{
  "repositories": [
    { "type": "vcs", "url": "https://github.com/dennismenken/scratchstart-theme" }
  ]
}

Option C — Clone for development

cd wp-content/themes
git clone https://github.com/dennismenken/scratchstart-theme.git scratchstart

Customization

Opt-in chrome

The theme renders nothing besides the document skeleton and <main> by default. Enable any chrome part you actually want from a child theme, a mu-plugin or even a snippet plugin:

add_filter('scratchstart_render_skip_link',    '__return_true');
add_filter('scratchstart_render_header',       '__return_true');
add_filter('scratchstart_render_footer',       '__return_true');
add_filter('scratchstart_render_post_title',   '__return_true');
add_filter('scratchstart_render_post_meta',    '__return_true');
add_filter('scratchstart_render_comments',     '__return_true');
add_filter('scratchstart_render_sidebar',      '__return_true');
add_filter('scratchstart_render_archive_loop', '__return_true');

scratchstart_render_header and scratchstart_render_footer additionally require an assigned menu (Header Menu / Footer Menu under Appearance → Menus) before any markup is emitted. The sidebar opt-in also requires at least one widget in the Main Sidebar area.

Optional WordPress core cleanup

WordPress core itself injects a few things that page-builder workflows rarely need (emoji detection script, oEmbed JS, default block-library CSS, RSD/wlwmanifest/generator/REST/shortlink links). Each is opt-in:

add_filter('scratchstart_disable_emojis',            '__return_true');
add_filter('scratchstart_disable_embed_script',      '__return_true');
add_filter('scratchstart_disable_block_library_css', '__return_true');
add_filter('scratchstart_clean_head',                '__return_true');

Or flip all four at once:

add_filter('scratchstart_lightning_mode', '__return_true');

scratchstart_disable_block_library_css removes both the classic block-library CSS and the modern global-styles / classic-theme-styles handles. Re-enable on a per-page basis if a single post relies on Gutenberg blocks.

scratchstart_disable_emojis also removes the emoji detection script in the admin (matches the de-facto behaviour of "Disable Emojis"-style plugins) so the editor doesn't ship the script either.

scratchstart_clean_head removes both the wp_head markup output and the matching HTTP Link: headers (REST, shortlink) emitted on template_redirect.

Forking

Fork or clone, then search-and-replace the slug scratchstart and the text domain across the codebase with your own theme name. The theme deliberately avoids enqueueing anything — add a wp_enqueue_style call in functions.php only if you actually ship styles.

Development

Install dev dependencies:

composer install

Run static analysis (PHPStan level 6, with WordPress stubs via szepeviktor/phpstan-wordpress):

composer analyse

Run a quick PHP syntax sweep over every template:

composer lint

CI runs both on every push to main and on every pull request via .github/workflows/ci.yml.

Release process (maintainers)

1. Bump the Version: header in style.css.
2. Commit on main.
3. Tag and push:

   git tag v2.0.0
   git push origin v2.0.0

4. The Release GitHub Actions workflow verifies that the tag matches style.css, lints every PHP file, builds scratchstart.zip and attaches it to an auto-generated GitHub Release. Versions containing a hyphen (e.g. v2.1.0-rc1) are published as prereleases.

A manual workflow_dispatch run builds the ZIP as a workflow artifact without creating a release — useful for smoke-testing changes.

License

WTFPL — Do What The F*ck You Want To Public License.

Credits

• Dennis Menken

Changelog

2.0.0

• Page-builder-first by default (breaking vs. 1.x): every chrome part – <header>, <footer>, post title, post meta, comments, sidebar, archive loop, skip-link – is opt-in via scratchstart_render_* filters. Default theme output is just <!DOCTYPE>, <head>, body skeleton with wp_head / wp_body_open / wp_footer, and <main id="main"> containing the_content().
• Optional WordPress core cleanup filters: scratchstart_disable_emojis, scratchstart_disable_embed_script, scratchstart_disable_block_library_css, scratchstart_clean_head (plus scratchstart_lightning_mode master switch). All default off.
• Bumped minimum PHP to 8.4. Added PHPStan (level 6) static analysis with szepeviktor/phpstan-wordpress stubs and a CI workflow (.github/workflows/ci.yml) that runs on every push to main and on every PR.
• Removed 404.php so WordPress falls back to index.php and lets a builder's "Not Found" template take over via template_include.
• Zero-CSS / zero-JS posture: theme no longer enqueues style.css.
• Hardened i18n: escaped output, consistent scratchstart text domain, fixed your_theme typo, wp_kses allowlist for translated HTML.
• Modernised functions.php: consolidated after_setup_theme callback, load_theme_textdomain, automatic-feed-links, responsive-embeds, widened html5 support.
• defined('ABSPATH') || exit guards on every template.
• Sidebar template additionally collapses when no widgets are active even if opted in.
• Navigation menus require an assigned menu before emitting markup; no wp_page_menu leak.
• composer.json for installation as a wordpress-theme Composer package.
• GitHub Actions workflow publishes scratchstart.zip on tag pushes.
• Theme metadata refresh (Requires at least, Tested up to, Requires PHP, correct Author URI).

1.0.0

• Initial release.