Helm theme documentation

1. 1

   Add Helm to your store

   Helm is distributed through the Shopify Theme Store. Once added, it appears in your theme library under Online Store in your Shopify admin.

2. 2

   Open the theme editor

   On the Helm card, click Edit theme. The home page opens with its default composition: a hero, a stats row, how it works, collection cards, a FAQ and a call to action, each one a Canvas section.

3. 3

   Set your colors and fonts

   Click the Theme settings icon. Under Colors, adjust the color schemes; under Typography, pick the heading, body and accent fonts.

4. 4

   Connect your menus and publish

   Build your menus under Content > Menus, choose the main menu in the settings of the Header section, then replace the placeholder copy and images. Publish the theme when your pages are ready.

Shopify admin labels are written here in English, as the Shopify Help Center writes them. Your admin shows them in its own language. Helm's own settings read in English in the theme editor: version 1.0.8 ships its editor labels in English only.

The Helm preset

The preset sets the starting values of Theme settings. Change any of them afterwards: the preset is only where the store starts.

Canvas section presets

When you add a section, the editor offers these compositions of Canvas. All but the empty Canvas come with their blocks and placeholder copy.

• Add a section. In the editor sidebar, click Add section and pick Canvas or one of its presets.
• Add a block. Hover over a Canvas section and click Add block. Canvas accepts every theme block and app blocks.
• Rearrange. Drag a block or a section by its handle, then click Save.
• Hide without deleting. Hover over the name of a block or section and click Hide.
• Section settings. Each Canvas section sets its width, the gap between its blocks, its top and bottom padding on desktop and on mobile, its color scheme and an anchor ID for links.
• Blocks inside blocks. These blocks hold other blocks: Group, Columns, Split, Hero, Slide, Tab, Accordion item.

Blocks with behavior worth knowing

• Heading. The heading level and the visual size are two separate settings, so a small title can stay the page's main heading. Keep one main heading per page.
• Button. Styles Primary, Secondary and Ghost, sizes Small, Medium and Large. Link relationship sets nofollow, sponsored, ugc or noreferrer on that link alone; Default follows Theme settings.
• Video. Upload a video to Shopify or paste a YouTube or Vimeo URL, then set autoplay, loop, mute and controls.
• Icon. Pick one of 18 icons, then its size, color and alignment.
• Countdown. Counts down to the End date you set, the same for everyone. It shows nothing without a future date, and hides itself once the date has passed.
• Email capture. Creates a customer in Shopify with the tag set in Customer tag, leadmagnet by default, so your email tool can segment on it.
• Review card. Link it to an entry of a product_review metaobject, with the fields title, review, rating, author_name and author_avatar, or fill it by hand. Metaobjects live under Content > Metaobjects.
• Product rating. Shows stars from the product metafields reviews.rating and reviews.rating_count, and nothing while they are empty.
• Step list. Fill HowTo name (for SEO) and the list also emits HowTo structured data for its steps.
• Store location. Address, opening hours, phone, coordinates and price range. The block also emits LocalBusiness structured data.
• Product price. Shows the price of the selected variant, with its compare-at price and unit price, and follows the variant the customer picks. Pickup availability and the Shop Pay Installments banner follow it too.
• Product bundle. Lists each chosen product's first available variant at its real price, then their real total, with no discount. One button adds them all to the cart; sold-out products are left out.

The product template starts with the title, price, rating, variant picker, quantity, buy buttons, pickup availability, Shop Pay Installments and description, then complementary products, selling points, a guarantee, related products, a FAQ and the sticky add to cart bar.

There is no customers template: Shopify hosts customer accounts, and the account icon in the header opens sign-in.

• The products in the cart, with their quantity and a remove button.
• A free shipping progress bar, when the threshold is above zero.
• The discounts already on the cart, such as automatic discounts. There is no discount code field: customers enter codes at checkout.
• An order note, when Show order note is on.
• The recipient details of a gift card, under the line they belong to.
• Product recommendations, set in the Cart drawer section.

With another Cart type, the cart icon leads to the cart page.

Indexing

• Kept out of search by default. The cart, search results for a query, collections filtered by tag and every page after the first are marked noindex.
• Landing templates. Auto-noindex landing pages, on in the preset, marks noindex the templates whose name contains landing, leadmagnet or advertorial.
• One page at a time. A text metafield seo.robots on a page, product, article or collection replaces the value for that item, for example noindex,follow.
• AI engines. When Allow AI engines to read your content is off, Helm adds noindex tags addressed to GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, CCBot and Google-Extended.
• Links to other sites. Buttons, image links, the announcement bar, the footer and the store location add nofollow, noreferrer and a new tab to links that leave your store, as the SEO settings say. A button or image can override this with its Link relationship.

Structured data

The JSON-LD Helm emits, and what triggers each type.

• Organization. On every page, with your logo, your store description and the social accounts of Theme settings. The home page adds WebSite with a search action.
• Product. On product pages, with the offer of the selected variant.
• BlogPosting. On articles.
• CollectionPage. On collection pages.
• BreadcrumbList. Where breadcrumbs are shown.
• FAQPage. From the page metafield faq.items, a list of metaobjects with a question and an answer, on pages that use page.faq or carry that metafield.
• HowTo. From a Step list whose HowTo name is filled.
• LocalBusiness. From each Store location block.

• No tracking script. Helm adds no analytics or advertising script. Connect your pixels under Settings > Customer events, or through the apps that provide them.
• Consent. Helm reads visitor consent from Shopify's Customer Privacy API. Turn on the cookie banner under Settings > Customer privacy.
• Cookie preferences. The Cookie preferences block, in the footer for example, reopens the visitor's privacy choices.
• A script of your own. Use a Custom Liquid section or block on the templates that need it.

• Storefront translations. The storefront text ships in English, French, Spanish and German.
• Adding a language. Add and publish a language under Settings > Languages. For a language Helm does not ship, translate it with Shopify's Translate & Adapt app or another translation app.
• Theme editor. The labels of Helm's settings are in English only, whatever the admin language.
• Right to left. For Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, Urdu and the other right-to-left languages, Helm switches the page direction.