A theme is installed as soon as it is on the disk.
If you want the theme to appears in the backoffice, it only needs to contain a config/theme.yml
file.
This will only display it, if you want to select it as your active theme, it has to be valid. Read “What
makes a valid theme”.
Once it is active you can export your theme using the “Export current theme” button or use the command from your terminal.
php bin/console prestashop:theme:export THEME_DIRECTORY_NAME
Exporting your theme using the button or the command line will export the following data:
theme.yml
(See theme.yml doc)