A new theme called Agave debuts at Plone Conference
Unveiled to a packed room in Mexico City, the lightweight, customisable theme is the first built for the next generation of Plone — and it's already turning heads.
For a project as mature as Plone, a new public-facing theme is no small thing. It is the first impression — the part every visitor sees before a single word of content loads. So when Agave was shown for the first time during the closing session of the conference, the response was immediate.
Named after the plant that defines the Mexican landscape where it was conceived, Agave is deliberately restrained. There are no loud patterns, no heavy chrome — just a warm, light palette, generous type, and a structure that gets out of the way of the content.
Built to be replaced
That might sound like an odd goal for a theme, but it is the point. Agave is designed as a starting point: a clean, accessible default that small institutions and individuals can adopt as-is, and that larger teams can re-skin or strip back entirely to match their own brand.
Every colour, radius and spacing value is exposed as a CSS variable. Swapping the agave green for a corporate blue, or tightening the whole layout, takes minutes rather than a rebuild.
“We wanted something that looks finished out of the box, but never gets in your way when you want to make it yours.”
— A member of the Agave working groupWhat's included
The first release focuses on the essentials every site needs from day one:
- A header and footer that repeat consistently across every page
- Breadcrumb navigation for orientation within deep site trees
- Polished templates for the three core content types — News Items, Events and rich text Pages
- Sensible, accessible defaults for typography and colour contrast
Try it yourself
Agave is open source and available now. Drop it onto a fresh Plone site, or fork it as the base for your own theme.
A homepage, listing views and additional content types are planned for upcoming releases. For now, the team is keen to hear how the first three templates hold up in real-world sites.