Required template files to make a theme?

From my understanding, to create a theme, you will need a minimum of 2 files:

  1. style.css
  2. index.php

I was wondering…

If you know how you want your (categories, single post, tags, static, archives) page to appear and you’ve already created all those files, how would you then write the code for index.php?

Imagine if you’ve created a template file for every page (even a custom home page where visitors will land), knowing how you want that page to display, how would you then create the index.php file?

This may not help, but one way to go about it is just to duplicate the Classic Theme in the themes folder and modify what’s there as needed. It’s worth looking at that folder anyway, as it shows some of the files needed to make up a theme.

This may not be what you’re looking for, but if you do a google search on “blank wordpress themes” you can find the framework to build your own theme.