Install the theme

Upload and activate

1. Go to Appearance → Themes → Add New → Upload Theme.
2. Choose the fern.<version>.zip file and press Install Now.
3. Press Activate.

Upload the zip exactly as it downloaded. Unzipping it first and uploading the folder gives you a theme with no stylesheet at the top level, which WordPress refuses to install.

After activating

A Fern menu appears in the admin sidebar, directly under Dashboard. It holds three screens — Welcome, Theme Settings and Info — and a Setup screen that builds the pages and the menu for you. Start there: Set up the site.

Everything else is in Appearance → Customize.

Updating

Fern is not on wordpress.org yet, so updates are uploaded the same way the first install was. WordPress will not overwrite an active theme from the upload screen, so either:

• deactivate Fern first by switching to another theme, upload the new zip, and switch back; or
• delete the old theme folder over SFTP and upload the new one in its place.

Your settings survive either route. Customizer values are stored against the theme in the database, not in the theme folder, and posts, notes and projects are untouched.

Child themes

If you plan to edit templates rather than only add CSS, work in a child theme so an update cannot overwrite the edits. A child theme needs a folder with a style.css naming Template: fern and a functions.php that enqueues the parent stylesheet. For CSS alone you do not need one — use Customize → Additional CSS.