This month in Astro

A month full of releases, Astro Studio, Astro Developer Portal, and so much more. Let's dive in!

Updates from Mission Control

• Astro DB is now available in early preview! 🚀
• We launched the all new Astro Developer Portal! 🎉
• All tests in Astro have been migrated to node:test

Releases

• Astro 4.5
• The first release of astro:db
• Starlight 0.21

Read more updates in our monthly blogpost.

Docs

This month, we added a new Upgrade Astro page to the docs that includes how to upgrade to the latest version, past upgrade guides and docs for older versions, as well as an explanation of Astro's semantic versioning from our platform team. If you ever wondered what all the different numbers in our release versions meant, we've now got you covered!

Our weekly Discord call “Talking and Doc’ing” is a chance for you to watch Team Docs work in public, jump in a shared Codespace or Gitpod Workspace, and contribute to the docs live, together. This month’s topics included:

• Updating our community website with all of our past community award winners going back to the very beginning, giving us a chance to test a new pagination component.
• Adding our new <Steps /> component to the entire Build a Blog beginner tutorial.
• Helping a brand new Astro-community resource site figure out how to get started with Starlight. Check out the new astro-tips.dev for recipes and more!

Community Awards: February 2024

🌟 $500 to @Ming-jun for contributing to all aspects of the Astro project and community including support, translations, migrating tests and fixing issues.

🍾 $250 to @ktym4a for contributions to the Astro ecosystem, including core and integrations.

🎈 $250 to @Jack Shelton for outstanding leadership and community support with the QwikDev/astro integration.

🎊 $250 to @Soslan for their enthusiastic contributions translating Astro Docs into Russian.

🎉 $250 to @Bryceguy for creating several popular community packages and leadership in community support.

👕 ✨ Swag shop merch issued this month to @tigger @Nathan Lawson and @sergio.s

Check out these and past winners on community.astro.build

Content

The big story this month was the launch of Astro DB and Astro Studio. Watch a documentary-style story of its creation, listen to a deep dive into what it does and how it works, and see a short guide for building a guestbook for your own site using Astro DB!

• 📺 The Story of Astro DB by @uidotdev
• 🎧 Astro Launches an Integrated Database - Shop Talk Show with Dave Rupert and Chris Coyier
• 📄 Creating a Guestbook with Astro DB by @mrtrimble

Also check out this year-in-review post from Erika, one of our core maintainers who works tirelessly to improve your dev experience: Things I've worked on at Astro in 2023

Discover even more content created this month in our monthly blogpost.

Tips & Tools

The latest community-built utilities and integrations to help you build with Astro.

Discover everything showcased, including tools for working with embedded social media posts and videos, authentication, and even a fun site where you can rediscover your very first PR to Astro in our monthly blogpost.

Themes & Templates

Several new Astro themes were added & released this month. Try them out!

• theme.technomancy.dev by @liltechnomancer
• clarity-astro-theme.netlify.app by @rush2jay
• Astro db Lucia auth starter template by @ElianCodes

Discover even more new themes and templates in our monthly blogpost.

Built with Astro: Showcase Additions

Catch up on everything showcased on the community call! Preview all the new sites from the community and around the web this month on the monthly blog post, including:

• A fresh take on a Linktree-style bio page: what if your contact icons also obeyed the laws of physics? And changed size based on the number of times they were clicked? You have to check out mikuhl.me!
• In theatres worldwide, The Goat Life is a true story about a man who embarks on a journey for a better life but finds himself forced into hard labor on a goat farm in the desert. See the movie trailer on the stunning official film page, built with Astro!
• Plan a journey yourself, on a fantasy-inspired travel agency site TravelCraft to explore the World of Warcraft's planet Azeroth. Explore booking options for inns, flights, and tours and read testimonials from various kings and the Warchief of the Horde.

Want to be on this list next month? Post your Astro websites, projects, apps, tools, blog posts, demos, and videos in our ⁠#showcase channel in our Discord!