Create Theme through Rest Admin API

Retired Boards Appdev Custom Storefronts

Topic summary

Main issue: Creating a theme via the Shopify Admin REST API fails due to an invalid src URL for the theme ZIP.

  • The example URL in docs (https://themes.shopify.com/theme.zip) is a placeholder. Using it returns “The file does not exist.”
  • The src field must point to a publicly accessible, direct-download URL of the theme ZIP (no authentication, login, or restricted sharing).

Latest update: The requester tried a SharePoint link, but it appears not publicly accessible. The responder could not access the ZIP from that link.

Guidance/next steps:

  • Host the theme ZIP at a public URL (e.g., S3 with public-read, a public web server, or another CDN) and ensure it downloads directly without redirects or auth prompts.
  • Verify accessibility by opening the URL in an incognito browser or via curl without credentials.

Outcome/status: No resolution yet. Action item is to provide a truly public, direct ZIP URL for the src parameter. Attachments were mentioned but are not necessary to understand the issue.

Summarized with AI on January 13. AI used: gpt-5.
1

While using the Create theme from Rest Admin API, I went through documentation: https://shopify.dev/docs/api/admin-rest/2023-10/resources/theme#create-2020-01

I am facing issue while creating theme that is due to the url of src that is not working: “src”: “http://themes.shopify.com/theme.zip”.

I am getting error:

{
errors: {
src: [
‘The file does not exist - https://themes.shopify.com/theme.zip’
]
}
}

Please Find attachments.

2

Hi Pamahajan,

I believe that http://themes.shopify.com/theme.zip URL is just a placeholder in the docs example - you’ll need to replace this with a publicly accessible URL where your theme’s zip file is stored.

3

I have tried adding a sharepoint url. But that too is not supported. Link: shopifyTheme.zip

4

Is that link publicly available? I can’t seem to access a theme zipfile from it.