The current release is 1.0.0. The full handover archive contains the installable theme ZIP plus documentation, installer, manifests, optional demo CSV/images and license notices. Upload only the inner theme ZIP to Shopify. A Shopify theme ZIP does not install the companion documentation or create store resources.
Before updating, duplicate your live theme, download its ZIP, and save any edited code and template settings. Record the current template assignments and resource selections. Products, pages, menus and files remain store-owned. Keep the previous theme in the library as your rollback.
Upload the new release as an unpublished theme. Reapply your global settings, menus, selected resources and edited section content in Customize, or have a developer merge those specific settings into the new source. Do not blindly replace settings_data.json or templates from a new demo over your merchant copy. Migrating code edits requires comparing your prior version with the new source. App blocks must be checked with their actual installed apps.
For the support-page ownership update, copy any custom default-page profile content into the corresponding dedicated template before discarding the old profiles. Publish only after the target suffixes are present, then assign each page to that suffix. Pages sharing one template share its section content; create an additional template when they need independent section layouts. Native page Content remains specific to each page and displays once beneath its introduction.
The metafield installer is additive and idempotent. Rerun its read-only plan first. Conflicting types require an explicit migration decision; it will not convert or delete values. Existing unknown fields remain untouched. Existing matching private definitions become storefront-readable only when apply is run. It does not migrate products, orders, app settings or business configuration.
Compare the old and new preview at phone, tablet and desktop widths, then check variants, cart, search, filters, media, pages, reports, forms and integrations. Publish the reviewed new theme. Roll back by republishing your saved old theme. Template assignments are store-owned, so restore them separately if your rollback theme lacks newly assigned suffixes.
For developers: work on a separate theme, use Node.js 22.12 or later and existing Shopify CLI. Run npm.cmd ci in template only when dependencies are missing, then npm.cmd test, npm.cmd run check and npm.cmd run package. Do not rerun historic scaffold scripts. python scripts/package-handover.py assembles the companion archive after packaging the theme.