Generating Theme Templates Requires Matomo from Git?

We are interested in customizing our Matomo theme. When I run: “./console generate:theme”, I get the following error:

This development feature requires Matomo to be checked out from git. For more information please visit https:
//developer.matomo.org/guides/getting-started-part-1.

We are not interested in running our production Matomo from git. If we develop our theme on a version of Matomo that is checked out from git, can we then install the finished theme into a non-git version of Matomo, or will be forced to always use Matomo from git?