Pre-launch checklist

The last chapter before you press “Publish”. Work through this in order. Each item is a yes/no check — if “no”, there’s a link to the chapter that explains how to fix it.

This checklist is meant for use the day before going live, after you’ve done all the setup and content work. It’s the final verification pass.

⚠️ Always run this against a duplicate of your theme, not the live one. In Shopify Admin: Online Store → Themes → Actions → Duplicate. Run the checklist on the duplicate. Once everything passes, publish the duplicate.

A. Branding and visual identity

Logo uploaded (PNG or SVG, 2× retina-ready). Check Theme settings → Branding → Logo. Test logo display on mobile + desktop. See chapter 2.
Color schemes configured for all 5 slots. Even if you only use 2, make sure schemes 3–5 are filled in so merchants can switch later. See chapter 2 — Color schemes.
Color contrast passes WCAG AA (4.5:1 normal text, 3:1 large text). Run each scheme’s text-on-background combinations through WebAIM Contrast Checker. Adjust scheme colors if needed.
Dark/light pair tested (if using). Toggle between modes in the header — every section should switch cleanly without FOUC (flash-of-unstyled-content). See chapter 2 — Dark/light mode toggle.
Typography roles assigned (Body, Subheading, Heading, Accent). Each role tested on hero + product + article pages. See chapter 2 — Typography.
Frame system configured (if using line/area frame). Test on long pages so the bottom-clearance works. See chapter 2 — Frame system.

B. Content readiness

All sections you’ll use have real content (not “Lorem ipsum”). Search through your home page, about page, contact page, and any landing pages for placeholder text.
All images have alt-text. Open each image-using section in the customizer and verify Image > Alt text is filled. Hyprism falls back to shop.name if empty, but that’s not as good for SEO as proper alt text.
All buttons have meaningful labels (not just “Click here”). Action-words like “Shop now”, “Learn more”, “View collection” are better.
All links point to real destinations (no # placeholders). Walk through your nav menu, footer menu, social links, and CTAs.
All product descriptions are written (not empty). Bulk-check via Shopify Admin → Products → filter to those with no description.
Collection descriptions written for at least the main 3–5 collections (used in collection-banner + SEO meta).
About page real (not Shopify’s default placeholder). Even a single paragraph + photo is enough.
Contact page has working form (test-submit it). See §10.11 Contact form.
Newsletter signup functional — submit a test email and verify it lands in Shopify Admin → Customers as a subscribed customer.

C. Templates

Home page customized in the theme editor (sections arranged, content filled, hero set).
Product page customized — at least one product reviewed in the editor with proper blocks. All other products will use the same template.
Collection page customized — banner image set on at least the main collections, products visible, filters configured.
Search page customized — even if you don’t expect heavy search use.
Article + Blog customized (if you’ll publish content).
Page template — used for About, FAQ, Shipping info, etc.
Cart drawer + Cart page both customized — see chapter 12.
404 page has a friendly message + CTA to home or featured collection.
Password page (if you’re soft-launching with a password gate) shows your brand, not Shopify’s default.

See chapter 11 for all template details.

D. Cart, checkout, and payment

Cart drawer tested — add an item, modify quantity, remove. Updates without page reload. See chapter 12 — Cart drawer.
Cart page tested — same flow but on /cart.
Checkout reachable — clicking “Checkout” goes to a real Shopify checkout (not a 404 or broken page).
Express checkout buttons visible (Shop Pay / Apple Pay / Google Pay / PayPal) — these are configured in Shopify Admin → Settings → Payments, not the theme.
Checkout branding applied — Shopify Admin → Settings → Checkout → Branding. Match logo, colors, fonts to your theme. The theme has no Liquid control over the checkout itself. See chapter 18 — Checkout branding.
Order confirmation email previewed and customized (Shopify Admin → Settings → Notifications → Order confirmation).
Free shipping promo bar configured if you offer free shipping (Cart Promo block, see chapter 12).

E. SEO and metadata

Home page meta description written. Theme settings → SEO & GEO → Home meta description.
Page-specific meta descriptions written for at least your top 5 product / page / article URLs (Shopify Admin → edit each item → SEO section).
OpenGraph image — Hyprism uses your Organization logo (Theme settings → SEO & GEO → Organization logo) as the OG-image fallback. There is no dedicated OG-image setting. For a custom 1200×630px social-share image, set the Organization logo to a 1200×630 image (the schema doesn’t require square aspect for the logo).
Twitter handle set — Theme settings → SEO & GEO → Twitter handle (without the @). Used for twitter:site Card attribution.
Schema.org structured data emitting — visit your home page, view-source, search for application/ld+json. You should see Organization, WebSite, plus Article on article pages. Product and BreadcrumbList schema are available but off by default — enable them in Theme settings → SEO & GEO if you want them. See chapter 13 — SEO and GEO.
robots.txt (optional AI-crawler allowlist) — Shopify auto-generates /robots.txt. To explicitly allow AI crawlers, add the optional robots.txt.liquid drop-in (see chapter 13 §13.6), then visit yourstore.com/robots.txt and verify GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended are Allow: /.
llms.txt page created (optional but recommended for AI search visibility). Create a Shopify Page with handle “llms” and assign template page.llms-txt. See chapter 13 — llms.txt.
Sitemap reachable: yourstore.com/sitemap.xml returns valid XML.

F. Performance

Run Lighthouse on Home + Product + Collection pages (mobile + desktop). Targets:
- Performance ≥ 75 mobile / ≥ 85 desktop
- Accessibility ≥ 85
- SEO ≥ 85
- LCP < 2.5s, CLS < 0.1
Hero image optimized (max 200kb for full-bleed images, use WebP via Shopify Files). Lighthouse will flag if oversized.
Above-the-fold images use eager loading, below-the-fold use lazy. See chapter 14 — Performance.
No render-blocking 3rd-party scripts in <head>. Shopify analytics + theme are fine; external scripts (chat widgets, popups, A/B testers) should be installed via app blocks (which load deferred) or in </body>.
Image lazy-loading works — scroll to a deep collection page and watch network tab. Below-fold images should NOT load until scrolled to.

G. Accessibility

Keyboard navigation works — Tab through the whole home page, then a product page. Skip-link visible on first Tab. Focus visible on every interactive element.
Screen reader test — use VoiceOver (Mac) / NVDA (Windows). Navigate the home page. Headings should be in order, images announce alt-text, buttons announce their purpose.
Color contrast rechecked (links above in section A) — for ALL color schemes, not just the default.
Form labels all present (newsletter, contact, login). No “name=‘email’ placeholder=‘email’” with no <label>.
Reduced motion respected — if you have OS-level “reduce motion” enabled, the slideshow shouldn’t autoplay, the carousel shouldn’t auto-rotate, etc. Hyprism handles this via prefers-reduced-motion — verify it works.

H. Mobile experience

Open every page in Chrome DevTools mobile view (375px width). Anything that looks wrong on desktop will look worse on mobile.
Touch targets ≥ 44×44 pixels for buttons. Lighthouse mobile audit catches this.
Cart drawer functions on mobile — small viewport, swipe interactions, close button reachable.
Header mobile drawer opens + closes cleanly. Test the burger menu, search, account button.
Forms usable on mobile — keyboard scrolls input into view, submit button reachable above the keyboard.
Slideshow / carousel swipe works on real mobile device (not just DevTools). Touch-hints visible at edges.

I. Localization (if multi-language)

All published languages have storefront translations — Shopify Admin → Settings → Languages.
Hreflang tags in head — view-source on a localized URL and verify <link rel="alternate" hreflang="…">.
DE schema translations applied (Hyprism ships with EN + DE). If adding more languages, see chapter 15.
Currency display correct per region — Shopify Admin → Markets.

J. Legal and trust

Privacy policy page exists and is linked in the footer (Footer legal block).
Terms of service page exists and linked.
Refund policy page exists and linked.
Cookie consent banner installed (use Pandectes GDPR or similar app — see chapter 16).
GDPR-compliant signup (newsletter has consent text if you ship to EU).
Imprint / Impressum for German market (legally required in DE).

K. Apps and integrations

Analytics installed — Shopify Analytics is automatic. Google Analytics 4 or Plausible if you use them, install via app or theme settings.
Email marketing — if using Mailchimp / Klaviyo, the Shopify integration is connected and the newsletter signup feeds into it.
Search & Discovery app configured (recommended for collection filters + sorting). See chapter 16.
Shipping rates configured in Shopify Admin (Settings → Shipping and delivery).
Tax settings configured per region.
App blocks tested — if you’ve installed any apps that inject section-blocks, they render correctly inside Hyprism’s @app-enabled sections.

L. Pre-publish smoke test

Do this FROM ANOTHER BROWSER (not your usual logged-in one) so you see the store as a customer sees it.

M. Day of launch

Publish the theme — Shopify Admin → Online Store → Themes → Publish.
Verify on real-world devices — your phone (mobile data, not WiFi), an iPad, a Windows laptop. Different browsers (Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge).
Tell Shopify your sitemap URL is yourstore.com/sitemap.xml — submit it in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.
Monitor live for the first hour — watch Shopify Admin → Live View for traffic flowing through cleanly.
First sale celebration ☕

N. First 48 hours

Check analytics daily for unusual bounce rates / cart abandonment.
Run Lighthouse on the live site (different from your dev store — production CDN, real network).
Check Google Search Console for any crawl errors that appear.
Test the order flow end-to-end with a real (or test) purchase, including refund flow.
Verify email notifications work — order confirmation, shipping confirmation.
Monitor cart abandonment recovery if you have it configured.

When to revisit this checklist

Every theme major version update (re-run sections A, F, G, L)
Adding a new section or page (run sections B, C, F)
Changing color schemes (re-run sections A, G — contrast)
Adding a new language (run section I)
After any third-party app install (re-run section K + section F for performance regression)

You’ve made it through the operational chapters. If you want concrete patterns for assembling stores of specific types (Editorial Fashion / Linux-Rice Tech / Single-Product DTC / B2B / Luxury Beauty), see chapter 22 — Recipe patterns.

The engineering reference (CLAUDE.md + the rest of docs/) is available if you go deeper into customization. For ongoing updates, the theme’s release notes on the Shopify Theme Store listing track all changes.

If you found something missing or unclear, that’s a documentation bug. Open an issue at the repo (link in theme settings → theme_documentation_url).