---
layout: docs
title: Themes
permalink: /docs/themes/
---

Jekyll has an extensive theme system, which allows you to leverage community-maintained templates and styles to customize your site's presentation. Jekyll themes package layouts, includes, and stylesheets in a way that can be overridden by your site's content.

## Installing a theme

1. To install a theme, first, add the theme to your site's `Gemfile`:

        gem 'my-awesome-jekyll-theme'

2. Save the changes to your `Gemfile`
3. Run the command `bundle install` to install the theme
4. Finally, activate the theme by adding the following to your site's `_config.yml`:

        theme: my-awesome-jekyll-theme

You can have multiple themes listed in your site's Gemfile, but only one theme can be selected in your site's `_config.yml`.
{: .note .info }

## Overriding theme defaults

Jekyll themes set default layouts, includes, and stylesheets, that can be overridden by your site's content. For example, if your selected theme has a `page` layout, you can override the theme's layout by creating your own `page` layout in the `_layouts` folder (e.g., `_layouts/page.html`).

Jekyll will look first to your site's content, before looking to the theme's defaults, for any requested file in the following folders:

* `/_layouts`
* `/_includes`
* `/_sass`

Refer to your selected theme's documentation and source repository for more information on what files you can override.
{: .note .info}

## Creating a theme

Jekyll themes are distributed as Ruby gems. Don't worry, Jekyll will help you scaffold a new theme with the `new-theme` command. Just run `jekyll new-theme` with the theme name as an argument:

```sh
jekyll new-theme my-awesome-theme
             create /path/to/my-awesome-theme/_layouts
             create /path/to/my-awesome-theme/_includes
             create /path/to/my-awesome-theme/_sass
             create /path/to/my-awesome-theme/_layouts/page.html
             create /path/to/my-awesome-theme/_layouts/post.html
             create /path/to/my-awesome-theme/_layouts/default.html
             create /path/to/my-awesome-theme/Gemfile
             create /path/to/my-awesome-theme/my-awesome-theme.gemspec
             create /path/to/my-awesome-theme/README.md
             create /path/to/my-awesome-theme/LICENSE.txt
         initialize /path/to/my-awesome-theme/.git
             create /path/to/my-awesome-theme/.gitignore
Your new Jekyll theme, my-awesome-theme, is ready for you in /path/to/my-awesome-theme!
For help getting started, read /path/to/my-awesome-theme/README.md.
```

Add your template files in the corresponding folders, complete the `.gemspec` and the README files according to your needs.

### Layouts and includes

Theme layouts and includes work just like they work in any Jekyll site. Place layouts in your theme's `/_layouts` folder, and place includes in your themes `/_includes` folder.

For example, if your theme has a `/_layouts/page.html` file, and a page has `layout: page` in its YAML front matter, Jekyll will first look to the site's `_layouts` folder for a the `page` layout, and if none exists, will use your theme's `page` layout.

### Stylesheets

Your theme's stylesheets should be placed in your theme's `/_sass` folder, again, just as you would when authoring a Jekyll site. Your theme's styles can be included in the user's stylesheet using the `@import` directive.

### Documenting your theme

Your theme should include a `/README.md` file, which explains how site authors can install and use your theme. What layouts are included? What includes? Do they need to add anything special to their site's configuration file?

### Adding a screenshot

Themes are visual. Show users what your theme looks like by including a screenshot as `/screenshot.png` within your theme's repository where it can be retrieved programatically. You can also include this screenshot within your theme's documentation.

### Previewing your theme

To preview your theme as you're authoring it, it may be helpful to add dummy content in, for example, `/index.html` and `/page.html` files. This will allow you to use the `jekyll build` and `jekyll serve` commands to preview your theme, just as you'd preview a Jekyll site.

If you do preview your theme locally, be sure to add `/_site` to your theme's `.gitignore` file to prevent the compiled site from also being included when you distribute your theme.
{: .info .note}

### Publishing your theme

Themes are published via [RubyGems.org](https://rubygems.org). You'll need a RubyGems account, which you can [create for free](https://rubygems.org/sign_up).

1. First, package your theme, by running the following command, replacing `my-awesome-jekyll-theme` with the name of your theme:

        gem build my-awesome-jekyll-theme.gemspec

2. Next, push your packaged theme up to the RubyGems service, by running the following command, again replacing `my-awesome-jekyll-theme` with the name of your theme:

        gem push my-awesome-jekyll-theme-*.gem

3. To release a new version of your theme, simply update the version number in the gemspec file, ( `my-awesome-jekyll-theme.gemspec` in this example ), and then repeat Steps 1 & 2 above.
We recommend that you follow [Semantic Versioning](http://semver.org/) while bumping your theme-version.