Getting started

Manifest is a Shopify theme by Kova Themes, for brands whose product needs explaining. Where most themes give you a place to make a claim, Manifest gives you structure to substantiate one — ingredient references, comparison matrices, documented test results, and protocol timelines, all editable from the theme editor without writing code.

This guide assumes you have a Shopify store and permission to install a theme on it. You do not need to know Liquid, and you do not need a developer.

What Manifest expects from your catalog

Manifest works with a plain Shopify catalog. Nothing here requires a metafield, an app, or a custom data model to function. That said, three habits make the theme look considerably better:

• Product images at a consistent aspect ratio. The theme handles mixed ratios without breaking, but a consistent catalog looks intentional rather than tolerated.
• Real product descriptions. Several sections pull from the product description and its formatting. A one-line description will render correctly and look thin.
• Product type and vendor filled in. Faceted filtering on the collection page uses both.

If you plan to use the evidence sections, you will also want the underlying facts to hand — concentrations, test dates, suitability notes. The theme gives you somewhere to put them; it cannot invent them.

The fastest useful setup

1. Install the theme and preview it before publishing. See Installing Manifest.
2. Set your color scheme and fonts in theme settings. Do this before laying out pages — every section inherits from these, so changing them later is one edit, not forty.
3. Build the home page. Start with a hero banner, a featured collection, and one evidence section. Resist adding all thirty-six.
4. Choose a product page architecture. Manifest ships two. See Product pages.
5. Set up the collection page. Turn on the facets you actually have data for, and no others.
6. Check it on a phone. Not a narrow browser window — an actual phone.

A note on restraint

Manifest deliberately exposes fewer per-section design controls than most themes. Color, type, spacing, card behavior, and motion are global settings that every section obeys. This is a design decision, not an omission: a store where each section was tuned separately reads as a collection of sections rather than a shop.

If you find yourself wanting a control that is not there, it is worth asking whether the underlying want is for that one section to look different, or for the whole store to. Usually it is the latter, and the global setting already does it.

Where to go next

• Installing Manifest — install, preview, publish, and update safely.
• Theme settings — the global controls and what they reach.
• Section reference — all thirty-six sections and where each belongs.
• Product pages — choosing between the two architectures.
• Troubleshooting — the problems that come up most.