Theme Submission Guidelines

Requirements and best practices for submitting themes to the Finqu partner portal.

Before you publish

Your theme is validated in the partner portal every time you publish for the first time or release an update. If a requirement is not met, you see a notification in the portal. When there are no notifications, you are ready to publish.

Before clicking Publish:

Confirm your theme meets the requirements for its channel type (required page templates).
Review the theme summary — name, author, demo URL, documentation URL, and preview image must be correct (editable in theme settings).
For updates: set a valid semantic version and write a changelog describing what changed.

Submission requirements

Required page templates

Your theme must support rendering the page types defined for its target channel type. The partner portal lists which templates are required — commonly including:

Storefront pages: frontpage, product, category, cart, search, page, 404, and customer account templates
Checkout themes: checkout, complete, download, order, orders, return

Create a .liquid file for each required template under templates/. Use alternate templates (e.g. product.campaign.liquid) only as optional variants — the base type must exist.

See Templates & Layouts for the full template list.

Build and deploy

You must build your theme at least once before publishing. In practice this means:

Run finqu theme deploy or your publish workflow so Finqu compiles assets (.scss.liquid → CSS in public/).
Ensure config/settings_schema.json and config/settings_data.json are valid JSON.
Include a layout/theme.liquid and at least one locale file per supported language.

Do not hardcode paths to public/ — use asset_url so compiled filenames resolve correctly after deploy.

Theme metadata

Set these in config/settings_schema.json:

Field	Purpose
`theme_name`	Public name shown to merchants
`theme_author`	Your company or name
`theme_image`	Preview image path (e.g. `assets/theme-preview.jpg`)
`theme_demo_url`	Live demo store URL
`theme_documentation_url`	Link to your theme docs

Preview assets

The partner portal expects theme preview media. Include images in your assets/ directory and reference them from theme_image and section/block defaults.

Versioning and releases

Use semantic versioning for theme releases (MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH).

Bump	When	Merchant impact
PATCH	Bug fixes, small CSS tweaks	Safe update
MINOR	New sections/blocks, backward-compatible features	Safe update
MAJOR	Breaking schema or layout changes	May reset merchant presets to theme defaults

Always fill in the changelog when releasing an update. An empty changelog is rejected.

Quality standards

Themes submitted to the marketplace should meet these benchmarks:

Complete — All required templates render without Liquid errors on empty and populated data.
Customizable — Sensible defaults in settings_data.json presets; sections use schema settings instead of hard-coded copy where possible.
Accessible markup — Semantic HTML, alt text on images, keyboard-friendly navigation.
Performance — Optimized images, minimal render-blocking scripts, use {% stylesheet %} / {% javascript %} to avoid duplicates.
Documented — theme_documentation_url points to setup and customization instructions.

Review process

Develop and test locally with Theme Development Kit.
Deploy to a test store and run through the testing checklist.
Open the partner portal, fix any validation notifications.
Submit for publish or release an update with version + changelog.
Finqu reviews marketplace themes before they appear to merchants (timeline varies).

Common rejection reasons

Issue	Fix
Missing required template	Add the template file under `templates/`
Invalid `settings_schema.json`	Validate JSON; check setting types match Settings
Theme not built	Deploy/compile so `public/` contains compiled assets
Empty changelog on update	Describe changes in the release form
Invalid version number	Use semver; do not reuse a published version
Broken demo URL	Ensure `theme_demo_url` is reachable

Post-submission updates

To ship fixes or features after your theme is live:

Make changes in your local theme repo.
Test with ThemeDev and on a staging store.
Bump the version (patch or minor for safe changes; major only when breaking).
Write a changelog entry.
Publish the update from the partner portal.

Merchants receive updates according to Finqu’s theme update flow. Major version bumps may reset their customization presets — document breaking changes clearly in the changelog.