Block theme styling follows a three-level hierarchy that mirrors traditional CSS cascade principles while providing more organized control over your design system.
Base styles apply to every element on your site – these are your foundational settings like default font families and colors. Element styles target HTML elements (h1, h2, links, buttons) across all blocks, overriding base styles where needed.
Block styles target specific WordPress blocks, taking precedence over both base and element styles. This lets you fine-tune individual block types while maintaining overall consistency through the lower levels.
Template-specific customizations happen in the site editor and are stored in individual templates, not theme.json. This hierarchy gives you systematic control from global defaults down to specific contexts, making your block theme both consistent and flexible.