- Is tightenco/jigsaw-blog-template a Composer package I can install with composer require?
- No. This is a starter template, not a distributable package: there is no composer require path and no semver contract for downstream users. You clone it or create a project from it, and at that moment its files become your own codebase. Composer is used inside the template to install Jigsaw itself and its dependencies, not to pull the template in as a vendor library. That means upgrades are a manual diff-and-port rather than a version bump.
- How do I get started with the Jigsaw blog template?
- Clone the repository or scaffold from it, then run composer install and npm install to pull in Jigsaw and the front-end toolchain. You run the build (or the local dev server) and Jigsaw compiles the Blade templates and Markdown collections into static HTML, CSS, and JS. The finished site lands in the build_production directory, ready to upload to any CDN or object store. Greenfield setup is typically a same-day job.
- Do I need a full Laravel application to use this template?
- No. Jigsaw is Tighten's Laravel-flavored static site generator, so you get Blade layouts, Composer, and a Tailwind-based front end without the framework runtime. There is no Eloquent, no queues, no HTTP kernel, and no database at request time because the output is static HTML. For a Laravel shop the skill overlap is real but partial, and the mental model is closer to a build pipeline than to an application.
- What PHP and Node versions does the template require?
- Jigsaw compiles on PHP 8.x, so your build environment needs a modern PHP runtime with Composer available. The current release also uses Vite and Tailwind 4, which want Node 20 or newer, so check your CI image, Docker stages, and developer machines before starting. Pin the Node version explicitly in CI and in your deploy image so local and hosted builds stay identical.
- Can I add comments, site search, contact forms, or user authentication to this template?
- Not natively, because the output is static and has no request-time capability. Comments, search indexes, and form handling are usually added as third-party services such as a hosted comment platform, Algolia or Pagefind, and a form endpoint. Auth, personalization, roles, and e-commerce need a separate application or a different platform chosen up front. Retrofitting dynamic behavior onto a static generator is the expensive path.
- How do posts, tags, and pagination work in the Jigsaw blog template?
- Posts are Markdown files with front matter, and Jigsaw compiles them into a collection defined in config.php. Tags come from front matter and are exposed to your Blade templates, where you render tag pages and filtered listings. Pagination is handled by Jigsaw's pagination helpers inside the Blade layouts, so the structure stays simple and content authors only touch Markdown. Remember that publishing is Git and pull-request based, which is a durable product constraint rather than a tooling detail.
- Is this template a good fit for a company blog, docs site, or landing page?
- It is a strong fit for content-led, read-mostly surfaces: company blogs, changelogs, docs and guides, landing pages, product or conference microsites, and internal knowledge bases published statically. It is a poor fit for anything needing request-time behavior like auth, personalized content, server-side forms, scheduled publishing, or commerce. If you need more batteries included, compare other Jigsaw starters or generators such as Astro, Eleventy, Hugo, or a Laravel app with a CMS before committing. Also confirm your authors are comfortable publishing through Git and pull requests.
- How do I upgrade the template, and is it actively maintained?
- Upstream has a thin maintenance signal: modest star count, few dependents, and best-effort releases from occasional contributors under the MIT license. Treat the repository as reference documentation rather than a supported dependency you can rely on for an SLA. If your site is a fork, port changes manually with a time-boxed diff instead of expecting a clean merge, especially if you have diverged in source, config.php, layouts, or build tooling. Budget internal ownership for anything you depend on.
- What changed in version 1.4.1, and why does it break existing forks?
- Although 1.4.1 reads like a patch, the payload is a toolchain replacement: Laravel Mix is swapped for Vite and Tailwind 3 moves to Tailwind 4. Tailwind 4 uses CSS-first configuration, so tailwind.config.js is largely replaced by @theme declarations and plugin, PostCSS, and preflight behavior have changed. Jigsaw's historical mix() helper no longer applies, so a Vite-based template must supply its own Blade directive that resolves hashed assets from the Vite manifest. Plan a time-boxed spike to hand-migrate theme tokens, plugins, and safelists, and re-check analytics against the new browser floor.
- How do I deploy and test a site built from this template?
- Run the production build and deploy the contents of build_production to any static host, CDN, or object store; there is no server process to manage. Confirm whether your deploy target consumes only that directory or also reads a manifest path you would have to update. For testing, verify the build in CI, check that the Vite asset-resolution helper works across every layout and custom Blade directive, and run link and HTML checks against the generated output. A staging deploy of the built artifacts is the most reliable pre-release gate.