There is no homepage URL I have just started learning/working with Drupal and I am trying to build a theme for a website (something that has nothing to do with a blog other than the fact that the content is dynamically generated). 

I have just installed Drupal 8.4 with the Minimal profile and created the bare structure of my theme. However, when I go to visit http://mysite I get redirected to http://mysite/users/1. 

I want to create a frontpage containing a large search bar and the thumbnails of some content (if that matters in any way). I created a page--front.html.twig but I still can't get rid of the redirect from / to /users/1.

Could you please give me some advice regarding this redirect and the more general idea of implementing a custom landing page?
This is the site default configuration:

/core/modules/system/config/install/system.site.yml

uuid: ''
name: 'Drupal'
mail: ''
slogan: ''
page:
  403: ''
  404: ''
  front: /user/login
admin_compact_mode: false
weight_select_max: 100
langcode: en
default_langcode: en


So if you have a Minimal install, you have to go to /admin/config/system/site-information and change the default front page.

The Standard profile overwrites this config to point it to the pre-installed front page view.