Themes

Konduit is a business theme — one implementation of the kontract. The kontract is designed so that many frontends can implement it, from platform-shipped experiences to themes your own team creates.

Alpha

The theme framework is under active development on the 0.7 line. This page describes the model; registration and building land incrementally.

The model

A theme is a frontend application in a Git repository that implements the kontract:

1. It consumes the kontract API — zones, apps, the shop, and optionally character progression — using the signed-in user's identity
2. It renders those concepts under its own metaphor: Konduit's business language, a space game's planets and launches, a racing team's cars and tracks
3. It declares its capabilities: a theme may implement a subset (apps only, no shop) and that's legitimate

Themes are apps the platform ships

The theme pipeline is the Konduit pipeline, pointed at itself:

1. An admin registers a theme repository with the organization
2. The platform builds it with Cloud Native Buildpacks — the same build system that ships every app
3. It deploys through GitOps into one of the organization's zones and serves on the platform's app domain
4. It appears as a launcher in the organization's workspace

No special hosting, no separate infrastructure: if the platform can ship your apps, it can ship your themes.

Creating your own theme

A theme repository needs:

• A frontend (any stack the buildpacks can build) that speaks the kontract client contract
• The kontract SDK — types, an API client, capacity math, and the auth handshake
• A KONTRACT.md declaring the theme's vocabulary, capabilities, and metaphor

The contract is deliberately small and fully specified, which enables the north star:

The north star

Because a theme is a well-specified template plus a vocabulary, an AI assistant can generate one from a description. "My theme is racetracks: race teams are zones, cars are apps, and there's a racecar driver character" — the assistant scaffolds the repository, and registering it makes it live. Theme creation becomes a conversation.

Trust and scope

Themes are organization-scoped applications, not platform code:

• A theme runs in the organization that registered it, serving that organization's users
• It acts with the signed-in user's identity — it can do nothing the user couldn't do
• Removing the theme removes the deployment, like any app

What's next

1. Creating a theme — the authoring spec, precise enough to hand to an AI assistant
2. The kontract — the contract themes implement
3. Architecture — the delivery pipeline that builds and ships themes