The problem it solves is the blank page. A Context Base is worth a lot once it exists, and writing one from scratch is work nobody wants to do before they’ve seen the product do anything. Initialize does the first pass for you and leaves you editing rather than authoring.
Running it
You’ll usually meet Initialize on your way somewhere else: open Studio or the Designer on a project that hasn’t run it, and Frontic steers you here once. Skip for now is always available and is remembered — you won’t be asked again. You can also start it deliberately from Library → Brand on a project with no brand yet.Point it at your shop
Enter your storefront address. If your project already has a
Shopware integration, Initialize reads catalog data through it as
well; otherwise you can pick another integration or let it read
the storefront only.
Let it read
Takes about 5–10 minutes. You can leave and come back — the
reading continues in the background, and a banner across Studio
and the Designer tells you where it’s up to.
Answer what it couldn't work out
Your storefront answers most of it. What’s left comes as a short
interview — usually a couple of minutes.
Review the drafts
Initialize writes its documents and hands you into the Designer.
Everything it wrote is editable from that moment on.
What it reads
The reading walks your shop the way a shopper would, then the way an analyst would.
As it goes, it shows you what it found — the colors it weighed, the link map, the tone markers, the manufacturer mix, the numbers behind your catalog. When your config and your live storefront disagree, it sides with the storefront.
The interview
Some things a storefront can’t tell you: who you’re really selling to, where you stand against competitors, which of two plausible readings is the right one. Initialize collects exactly those and asks them one at a time, grouped by topic and marked by impact. Every question has an escape hatch:- You decide for me — Initialize picks from your storefront plus best practice
- I’ll tell you — answer in your own words instead of choosing an option
- Not relevant — skip it
What it writes
Initialize produces eight documents and puts each where the agents that need it will find it.
Project rules land in two places on purpose — Studio and the Designer each get their own copy, so you can let them diverge as the projects’ needs pull apart without breaking the other one.
Nothing here is final. These are drafts written from evidence, and the whole point is that you now have something concrete to correct rather than a blank editor.
Running it again
Re-running Initialize overwrites the documents it owns with a fresh reading. Useful after a redesign, a repositioning, or a catalog shift big enough that the old drafts are wrong. Brand tokens are handled more carefully: a re-run doesn’t touch your live brand while it’s reading. The new tokens only replace the old ones once you’ve been through the interview and confirmed, so a re-run can’t leave experiences mid-build without a brand. Earlier brand versions stay in the Design Library’s history either way.When it can’t read your shop
Initialize is a real browser hitting a real storefront, so it runs into the same walls anyone else would. It tells you which one it hit.
A failed reading changes nothing — your shop isn’t touched, and you can start it again whenever you like.
Frontic only sends your bypass token to domains registered on the project. That’s why the domain has to exist before the token is any use — see Domains.
Related
Design Library
The brand tokens Initialize derives, and how to refine them.
Rules
Where the styleguide, tone of voice, and domain rules land.
Context Base overview
What the Context Base is and how agents read from it.
Experience Designer
The surface Initialize hands you into when it’s done.