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How to Upgrade the Hyvä Theme?

By

Priya Patel

4 min read
Last Updated on: January 26, 2026
How to upgrade the Hyvä theme in Magento 2 step by step

Upgrading the Hyvä Theme in your Magento 2 store is a crucial task that helps you stay compatible with the latest frontend improvements, security patches, and performance enhancements. This guide carefully walks you through the upgrade process step-by-step and furthermore explains how to safely upgrade both the theme and its supporting modules.

Additionally, we’ll cover when to upgrade, how to prepare, the exact commands you’ll run, and important tips that save time and avoid breaking changes.

What Is the Hyvä Theme?

The Hyvä Theme is a lightweight, ultra‑fast frontend theme for Magento 2 designed to replace the default PHTML + Knockout + LESS stack with a modern Tailwind CSS and Alpine.js setup. It’s widely used for performance‑focused stores and regularly updated by the Hyvä team to improve compatibility and features.

Why Upgrade the Hyvä Theme?

Upgrading ensures that your Magento 2 store benefits from the latest fixes, component improvements, and compatibility updates with Tailwind CSS, Alpine.js, and Magento itself. Hyvä releases often fix bugs, optimize build processes, improve accessibility, and keep your store secure.

Before performing an upgrade, always check the official Hyvä upgrade notes for backward‑incompatible changes specific to the version you’re targeting.

Pre‑Upgrade Checklist

  • First, backup your database and codebase (staging + production) to ensure you can revert changes if needed.
  • Next, check the current versions of hyva-themes/magento2-default-theme and hyva-themes/magento2-theme-module to know what needs updating.
  • Additionally, review the upgrade notes and changelog on the official Hyvä docs for any version-specific instructions.
  • Then, test the upgrade in a staging environment before applying it to production, which helps prevent downtime.
  • Finally, prepare tools like Git and diff utilities for merging theme changes smoothly and efficiently.
  • Moreover, consider documenting any changes you make during the upgrade for future reference.

Step 1 — Check Version Specific Changes

Before upgrading, review the release notes for your target version on the official Hyvä upgrade docs. These notes list any backward‑incompatible changes that might affect your custom theme.

For example, the Hyvä 1.4.x releases modernized frontend tooling and Tailwind CSS support — changes that may require review of your theme files if you heavily customized styles.

Step 2 — Update Theme Dependencies

The main packages you’ll update are:

  • hyva‑themes/magento2‑theme‑module — core theme infrastructure
  • hyva‑themes/magento2‑default‑theme — default theme base

Run these Composer commands in your Magento project root:

composer require hyva-themes/magento2-theme-module
composer require hyva-themes/magento2-default-theme
composer update

If you want to target a specific version, simply replace the package version accordingly, for example: composer require hyva-themes/magento2-theme-module:1.4.2

Step 3 — Review & Merge Customizations

Furthermore, if you have customized theme templates or static assets, you must manually compare your overrides with the updates in the new Hyvä version. Additionally, version control tools like Git or diff tools help review changes between your custom files and the upstream default theme.

Step 4 — Recompile & Deploy

After merging necessary changes and ensuring everything is up‑to‑date, regenerate Magento static content and caches:

bin/magento setup:upgrade
bin/magento setup:static-content:deploy
bin/magento cache:flush

This ensures new Tailwind builds and default theme layouts are applied properly.

Test Your Upgrade

After deployment, test your store thoroughly:

  • Page rendering
  • Checkout flow
  • Responsive layouts
  • Custom components and Alpine.js behavior

Furthermore, make sure nothing breaks due to merged changes or updated DOM structures.

Common Upgrade Challenges

  • DOM Structure Changes — Often require template adjustments in your custom overrides.
  • Tailwind CSS Configuration — You might need to merge new config keys introduced by updates.
  • Third‑Party Compatibility — Some extensions check the theme by name and may need updates.

Final Thoughts

Upgrading the Hyvä Theme is an essential maintenance task that keeps your Magento 2 store secure, performant, and ready for future improvements.By carefully following the upgrade process — including checking release notes, updating dependencies, merging customizations, and testing thoroughly — you can therefore upgrade safely and confidently.

Priya Patel

January 26, 2026