Unpacking HubSpot's Elevate Theme: Why Your Cloned Sections Might Be Missing Categories

Hey there, ESHOPMAN community! As your go-to experts for all things HubSpot and e-commerce, we often find ourselves digging into the nitty-gritty of the platform. And let’s be honest, sometimes the most valuable insights come from the trenches – like the HubSpot Community forums.

Recently, a fascinating discussion popped up that really caught our eye, especially for those of you building custom themes or managing your HubSpot embedded store. It revolved around a peculiar issue with HubSpot’s Elevate theme and its section categories. If you’ve ever cloned a theme and wondered why certain features just… vanish, this one’s for you.

The Mystery of the Missing Section Categories

The original poster in the community discussion laid out a common scenario: they were using a cloned version of the popular Elevate theme as a foundation for a new custom theme. Everything seemed to be going smoothly until they went to add a new section in the page editor. Instead of seeing the beautifully organized categories like "Hero," "Call to action," "About us," and so on, they were presented with just one option: "All sections."

Imagine the frustration! Those categories are super helpful for quickly finding the right module and maintaining a consistent design flow. Here’s what the original Elevate theme looked like, with its helpful categories:

And here’s the stark difference in the cloned version:

The original poster rightly asked if there was anything that could be done to restore these category groupings, as it makes for "a much nicer experience." And they're absolutely right – good UI/UX in the editor is just as important as on the live site!

The Expert Reveal: Elevate's Special Status

Luckily, a seasoned community member, an expert in HubSpot development, weighed in with some crucial insights. Their immediate response was that this feature – the section category grouping – is most likely (still) an Elevate/HubSpot reserved feature.

Why? Well, HubSpot often uses its own themes, like Elevate (which is a React CMS theme, by the way, not a standard HubL theme), as a testing ground for potential new functionalities. It’s a smart way for them to experiment and refine features before rolling them out to the broader developer community or making them available for general custom theme development.

The expert even dug into the Elevate theme files and found the magic line of code responsible for these groupings:

landingPageSectionCategories: [TEAM]

This line is typically placed within the template annotation for each section, like this:

This landingPageSectionCategories property, when used with a specific value like [TEAM] (which likely refers to an internal HubSpot team or a specific designation), enables the categorization. However, the expert tested this with their own HubL themes and confirmed that adding this line didn't enable the grouping feature. This strongly supports the theory that it's an Elevate-only, or at least a HubSpot-internal, capability for now. Neither child themes nor other standard themes currently support it.

What This Means for Your HubSpot Theme Development

So, what's the takeaway here for us RevOps pros, marketers, and developers building on HubSpot? It means that while cloning an existing theme can be a great starting point, not every single feature or UI enhancement you see in a HubSpot-built theme like Elevate will automatically transfer or be available for your custom builds. HubSpot reserves certain features for internal testing and development, and they don't always expose them to the public API or documentation immediately.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing. It shows that HubSpot is actively innovating and improving its CMS. However, it does highlight the importance of understanding the current capabilities of the HubSpot CMS and being prepared for potential differences when you're working with custom themes.

For those of you running an e-commerce operation, whether it's a full-fledged HubSpot embedded store or a simple product catalog, a well-organized and intuitive theme editor is crucial for efficiency. While we can't magically enable these categories in cloned themes today, focusing on clear labeling and descriptive section names in your custom themes can still greatly improve the editing experience for your team.

ESHOPMAN Team Comment

From the ESHOPMAN team's perspective, this discussion perfectly illustrates the nuances of working within a rapidly evolving platform like HubSpot. While it's disappointing that this specific UI enhancement isn't yet available for custom themes, Anton's detective work is invaluable. It confirms that HubSpot is pushing the boundaries internally, and we should expect these features to eventually trickle down. For now, developers building custom themes need to manage expectations and focus on robust, well-documented modules rather than relying on features that might be Elevate-specific.

Looking Ahead: Staying Updated and Building Smart

The HubSpot ecosystem is constantly evolving. Features that are exclusive today might become standard tomorrow. The best approach for developers and marketers is to:

• Stay engaged with the HubSpot Community: It’s a goldmine of information and peer support.
• Keep an eye on the HubSpot Developer Changelog: This is where new features and updates are officially announced. The expert even referenced an August 2025 changelog entry about "sections library modal improvements," indicating HubSpot is actively working on enhancing the section-first editing experience.
• Focus on clean, semantic code: Regardless of UI categories, well-structured HubL and CSS will always lead to a better, more maintainable theme.
• Prioritize editor experience: Even without categories, clear section labels, helpful descriptions, and logical grouping of fields in your module code can make a huge difference for content creators.

While we might have to wait a bit longer for those beautiful section categories in our custom themes, understanding why they're not there today helps us build smarter and set realistic expectations. Keep those questions coming in the community – that's how we all learn and grow together!