Stoat is distributed through WordPress.org, so it updates like every other directory theme.
The normal way
Dashboard → Updates, or Appearance → Themes, shows an update notice when a new version is published. Click it. With WP-CLI:
wp theme update stoat
To have it happen without you: Appearance → Themes → Stoat → Theme Details → Enable auto-updates.
What survives an update
Everything you set in the Customizer, and everything you typed into a post.
Customizer settings are stored as theme mods in the database, not in the theme folder, so replacing the folder does not touch them. The same goes for menus, widgets, the site icon, and the per-post subtitle and page options fields.
What does not survive
Edits to the theme’s own files. An update replaces the entire stoat folder. If you have changed style.css, a template, or functions.php directly, those changes are gone on the next update — quietly, and usually at the worst moment.
Two ways to avoid that, in order of how often you should reach for them:
- Customize → Additional CSS for styling. It is stored in the database and is untouched by updates. See custom CSS.
- A child theme for anything that needs PHP — a changed template, a new hook callback.
Before a major update
On a site that matters, the honest advice is the boring advice: take a backup first, and if you can, update a staging copy before the live one. Stoat’s updates are additive far more often than not, but “far more often than not” is not the same as “always”, and a backup costs a minute.
Checking what you are on
Appearance → Themes → Stoat → Theme Details shows the installed version. The changelog lists what each release changed.