Creating Themes

Themes are used to configure the look and feel of login pages and the account management console.

Custom themes packaged in a JAR file should be deployed to the ${kc.home.dir}/providers directory. After that, run the build command to install them before starting the server.

You are also able to create your custom themes in this directory, directly. Themes within this directory do not require the build command to be installed.

When running the server in development mode using start-dev, themes are not cached so that you can easily work on them without a need to restart the server when making changes.

See the theme section in the Server Developer Guide for more details about how to create custom themes.

Overriding the built-in templates

While creating custom themes, especially when overriding templates, it may be useful to use the built-in templates as a reference. These can be found within the theme directory of ../lib/lib/main/org.keycloak.keycloak-themes-26.4.5.jar, which can be opened using any standard ZIP archive tool.

Built-in themes should not be modified directly, instead a custom theme should be created.