index
The index
template renders the home page of the store, located at the root URL (/
). The home page often serves as a customer's first impression of a merchant's store, so the index
template should include versatile options for merchants to tell their story.
Refer to the index template in Dawn for an example of this template.

Anchor to LocationLocation
The index
template is located in the templates
directory of the theme:
Anchor to UsageUsage
When working with the index
template, you should familiarize yourself with the differences between JSON and Liquid index templates.
Anchor to JSON vs. LiquidJSON vs. Liquid
Both JSON and Liquid index templates allow merchants to add and remove sections using the theme editor. Although the Liquid index template has this functionality, in most cases, you should use a JSON template (index.json
) as your index template. JSON templates have the following advantages over Liquid templates:
- JSON templates give more flexibility for merchants to add, remove, and reorder sections, including app sections.
- JSON templates store their own data, which minimizes the amount of data in settings_data.json and improves the performance of the theme editor.