This is step 7 of our onboarding guide to becoming a reviewer
For a theme to be added to the Theme Directory, the theme must:
- be GPL compatible.
- be secure.
- be free of PHP or JS notices/warnings/errors.
- not be in conflict with plugins (e.g. prefixing).
- be translation ready.
- use WordPress functions, hooks, filters and libraries.
- not do anything illegal, dishonest, or morally offensive.
These are the basics, but the list of requirements is much longer than that.
The important thing to remember is that you are not expected to know or remember every requirement. No one can do that, not even experienced reviewers and theme authors.
But it is important to know where to find the requirements, where to find the code reference, and where to ask questions.
Please browse through the requirements to get a better idea of the expectations that we have on the themes:
Whenever you have a question about how a function, hook or filter works, always refer to the official code reference: https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/
And when you need help, you can ask other reviewers and theme authors on Slack, in the #themes channel. https://wordpress.slack.com/messages/themes