What Is a Child Theme

A child theme in WordPress is a sub-theme that inherits the functionality, structure and styles of a parent theme. It lets you make changes safely without touching the files of the original theme. When the parent theme is updated, all the edits you made in the child theme keep working, and the update does not erase your changes. That is why working through a child theme is considered a reliable way to customize. You do not change the parent theme’s files; you create overridden versions of them in the child theme.

To create a child theme, you need to create a separate folder inside the themes directory. The main file without which it will not be recognized is style.css. Its header specifies the parent theme through the Template parameter, which must exactly match the name of the parent theme’s folder. After the child theme is activated, its styles are loaded on top of the parent’s styles, so you can override any CSS rules. The parent theme continues to work fully, providing the functionality you have not changed in the child theme.

Example of a correct child theme style.css file

/*
 Theme Name:   My Child Theme
 Theme URI:    https://example.com/
 Description:  Child theme for the Twenty Twenty-Five theme
 Author:       Your Name
 Author URI:   https://example.com/
 Template:     twentytwentyfive
 Version:      1.0.0
 Text Domain:  my-child-theme
*/

/* Ваши пользовательские стили */

Important:
Template: must be exactly the name of the parent theme’s folder. For example, if the theme is located in /wp-content/themes/twentytwentyfive, then Template: twentytwentyfive.

Example functions.php for loading the styles correctly

Although a child theme can work without its own functions.php, in practice it is almost always needed — first of all to load the parent theme’s styles.

<?php
add_action( 'wp_enqueue_scripts', 'my_child_theme_styles' );
function my_child_theme_styles() {
    // Подключаем стиль родительской темы
    wp_enqueue_style(
        'parent-style',
        get_template_directory_uri() . '/style.css'
    );

    // Подключаем стиль дочерней темы
    wp_enqueue_style(
        'child-style',
        get_stylesheet_directory_uri() . '/style.css',
        array( 'parent-style' )
    );
}

my-child-theme/
│
├── style.css ← обязательный файл
├── functions.php ← подключение стилей и пользовательский код
└── screenshot.png ← (необязательно) миниатюра темы в админке

my-child-theme/
└── header.php ← заменит header.php родительской темы

{
  "version": 2,
  "settings": {
    "color": {
      "palette": [
        {
          "name": "Брендовый цвет",
          "slug": "brand",
          "color": "#0066ff"
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

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