Generating demo data

For merchants

You can generate from the Administration or the command line. Both do the same work.

From the Administration

Settings → Extensions → Demo data

1. Choose which sales channels to build.
2. Set products per category.
3. Choose whether to download photography and whether to create customers and orders.
4. Click Generate.

The run is queued, not executed in the page: the first run downloads around 400 photos and takes several minutes. The page polls for progress, survives a reload, and refuses to start a second run while one is going.

Something must process the queue

Keep an Administration tab open (Shopware's admin worker processes the job), or run a queue worker (bin/console messenger:consume async) — see Shopware: Message queue. The command line has no such requirement.

From the command line

bin/console kmh:demo-data:seed                     # everything: 5 channels, 2,000 products
bin/console kmh:demo-data:seed -c fresh -c trade   # only these storefronts
bin/console kmh:demo-data:seed -p 4                # 4 products per category — quick, e.g. for CI
bin/console kmh:demo-data:seed --skip-orders       # catalogue only, no customers or orders
bin/console kmh:demo-data:seed --skip-media        # no photo download (much faster)
bin/console kmh:demo-data:status                   # read-only: what exists already

Option	Meaning
-c, --channel	Storefront key, repeatable: flagship, fresh, trade, wellness, outlet. Default: all.
-p, --per-category	Products per leaf category. Default 50. Raising it later only adds products; nothing is renamed or renumbered.
--skip-orders	Do not create customers or orders.
--skip-media	Do not download or import photos.

The command is non-interactive, so it fits in provisioning scripts. It ends with a per-entity tally of what was created, reused, adopted (an existing record matched by name) and enriched (missing fields filled in), and prints the two customer logins per storefront that have a password.

A second run against an unchanged shop reports 0 created, 0 enriched.

After the first run

Storefronts the plugin created need a theme and search indexes:

bin/console theme:change --all --sync Storefront
bin/console dal:refresh:index

The command reminds you when this is needed.

Created storefronts are given the domains http://localhost/flagship, /fresh, /trade, /wellness and /outlet. On any other host, change them under Sales Channels → (channel) → Domains to your real URLs.

The flagship storefront adopts an existing sales channel called Storefront (Shopware's default) instead of creating a new one. An adopted channel keeps its own navigation category, so your existing products stay where they are.

Running it again

Re-running is safe and cheap:

• missing records are created, existing ones reused;
• empty fields are filled in, edited fields are kept — a description you rewrote stays rewritten;
• missing links are added, nothing is unlinked;
• nothing is deleted.

Use it to top up a demo shop after adding a storefront, raising products per category, or after someone deleted data.