Working with themes in Next Experience

  • Release version: Australia
  • Updated March 12, 2026
  • 2 minutes to read

    • Themes let you customize the visual experience to match your brand.

    Quickly create, edit, preview, and publish themes to your experiences using Theme Builder. See Configure Next Experience with Theme Builder for more information.

    Note:
    Theming applies to the classic environment in Lists, Forms, and Dashboards. Custom components don't reflect theming.

    Theming at a glance

    • Theming is the ability to customize the Next Experience Design System to reflect your product or brand.
    • Theming means styling various aspects of the ServiceNow® platform while maintaining the overall look and feel.
    • Theming typically involves changing the colors to your company brand colors but can also include typography, imagery, shape and form.

    Next Experience default themes

    Customers have the Next Experience Coral theme enabled by default on their instance.

    Customers upgrading from a previous release continue to see the theme applied to their instance before the upgrade, for example the Next Experience Polaris theme or a theme created in Theme Builder. Use Theme Builder to publish Coral theme to your instance or add Coral theme to the Next Experience UX Parent App Theme table.
    Figure 1. Next Experience default themes in Preferences modal
    Theme preference with Polaris and Coral themes displayed.
    Figure 2. Coral theme light variant
    Record page with Coral theme light variant applied.
    Figure 3. Coral theme dark variant
    Record page with Coral theme dark variant applied.

    Theme record

    This image shows the default Polaris theme, which is read-only. You create your own themes and styles to be used by experiences in your instance by either copying the Polaris or Coral theme or by copying a Theme Builder theme record. If you copy either the Polaris or Coral theme, you also must copy the styles under UX Theme Styles and make changes to those styles, as desired. At least one Core type style must be defined.

    Next Experience Polaris UX theme main record with Applicability, Order, Style and Type columns highlighted

    Theme styles

    When you configure a theme, you adjust the color schemes, fonts, and images of your applications. On the Theme Builder Theme form, you configure Order, Style, and Type settings.
    Order
    Style records with higher-order values override styles with lower values. The base system styles all have the order 0. If you meet the Applicability constraint, styles with higher values override the base system styles. If not, the lower-value style is used.
    Style
    Style records define reusable styles that together comprise a theme. Core styles include color, shape and form, typography, and imagery. Variants are a different version of the theme, commonly different colors, that users can select in preferences. The most common use of variants is for accessibility purposes, particularly to account for color blindness. If you decide to use a dark theme, consider selecting the Polaris or Coral theme or create a dark alternate color palette in Theme Builder.
    Type
    Styles can be of either the Core type or the Variant type. Core styles are active by default. Users can choose from available variants from their Theme user preference, and those variant styles override the core style. Theme Builder doesn't automatically generate dark theme variants; however, you can create a dark alternate color palette with limited customization. For more information, see Add an alternate color palette. The Polaris and Coral themes include a Dark Theme variant that is available on instances with Next Experience enabled.