THEME ENGINE // THEME.JSON SPEC & GARDEN TAXONOMY

Themes & Digital Garden

Indie in a Box separates presentation logic from runtime engine code. Themes are simple, portable directory bundles stored in data/themes/ governed by a declarative theme.json manifest.

01 // The theme.json Manifest

Every theme must contain a theme.json file at its root. This defines theme metadata, authors, required capabilities, custom template overrides, and color options:

DATA/THEMES/CYBER-DARK/THEME.JSON

{
  "name": "Cyber Dark",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "description": "A 90s anime cyberpunk dark theme with neon cyan and pink accents.",
  "author": {
    "name": "Lumen Pink",
    "url": "https://lumen.pink"
  },
  "license": "MIT",
  "min_engine_version": "1.0.0",
  "supports": [
    "microformats2",
    "digital_garden",
    "webmentions",
    "camo_proxy",
    "multilingual"
  ],
  "options": {
    "accent_color": "#ff2a85",
    "secondary_color": "#00f0ff",
    "monospace_code": true
  }
}

02 // Template File Hierarchy

Theme templates use clean, standard HTML5 with embedded token replacements or minimal PHP view components. The engine falls back to default built-in views if a template file is omitted:

Template File	Purpose	Available Context Variables
layout.html	Master site wrapper (HTML shell, head tags, header, navigation, footer).	`{{site_name}}`, `{{fqdn}}`, `{{content}}`, `{{hcard}}`
index.html	Homepage layout rendering recent posts, pinned garden items, and author bio.	`{{posts}}`, `{{author_bio}}`, `{{recent_replies}}`
post.html	Single post permalink layout with microformats2 `h-entry` markup.	`{{post_title}}`, `{{post_content}}`, `{{webmentions}}`, `{{interactions}}`
garden.html	Digital Garden index grouping notes by flowerbeds, maturity, and confidence.	`{{flowerbeds}}`, `{{maturity_tree}}`, `{{seedlings}}`
gemini.gmi	Optional theme override for Gemini protocol capsule rendering.	Gemtext formatting tokens

03 // Installing & Managing Themes

You can install themes through the Admin panel or by dropping them directly into data/themes/:

Via Admin Dashboard

Navigate to Admin → Configuration → General. Paste a ZIP download URL or select an official repository. The engine extracts the files and validates the theme.json manifest automatically.

Via Git / File System

Clone or extract any theme repository into data/themes/<theme-name>/. Run php indieinabox.php config set --key active_theme --value <theme-name> and rebuild with php indieinabox.php build.

04 // Digital Garden Taxonomies

Unlike traditional reverse-chronological blogs, Indie in a Box includes first-class support for non-linear knowledge graphs:

Taxonomy Metric	Allowed Values	Visual Representation & Meaning
Flowerbed (Category)	Any string slug (e.g. `tech`, `philosophy`, `cyberpunk`)	The thematic "plot of soil" where ideas are cultivated together.
Maturity Stage	`sprout`, `seedling`, `tree`, `wilted`, `stone`	Visual plant lifecycle icon indicating whether an essay is an unfinished seed or evergreen resource.
Confidence Level	`certain`, `likely`, `possible`, `unlikely`, `impossible`	Epistemic indicator signaling the author's certainty in the hypothesis presented.
Importance Weight	`trivial`, `minor`, `moderate`, `major`, `critical`	Sort weight determining prominent placement in search results and capsule roots.