1+++
2date = '2025-10-04T13:35:33+02:00'
3draft = true
4title = 'Test'
5cover = 'test-post-image.png'
6description = 'Walk through the workflow of building a simple Hugo theme, from scaffolding the site to customizing layouts.'
7tags = ['tutorial', 'hugo', 'themes']
8+++
9
10## Introduction
11
12This tutorial will show you how to create a simple theme in [Hugo](https://github.com/gohugoio/hugo). I assume that you are familiar with HTML, the bash command line, and that you are comfortable using Markdown to format content. I'll explain how Hugo uses templates and how you can organize your templates to create a theme. I won't cover using CSS to style your theme.
13
14We'll start with creating a new site with a very basic template. Then we'll add in a few pages and posts. With small variations on that, you will be able to create many different types of web sites.
15
16In this tutorial, commands that you enter will start with the "$" prompt. The output will follow. Lines that start with "#" are comments that I've added to explain a point. When I show updates to a file, the ":wq" on the last line means to save the file.
17
18Here's an example:
19
20```
21## this is a comment
22$ echo this is a command
23this is a command
24
25## edit the file
26$ vi foo.md
27---
28date: "2014-09-28"
29title: "creating a new theme"
30---
31
32bah and humbug
33:wq
34
35## show it
36$ cat foo.md
37---
38date: "2014-09-28"
39title: "creating a new theme"
40---
41
42bah and humbug
43$
44```
45
46
47## Some Definitions
48
49There are a few concepts that you need to understand before creating a theme.
50
51### Skins
52
53Skins are the files responsible for the look and feel of your site. It’s the CSS that controls colors and fonts, it’s the Javascript that determines actions and reactions. It’s also the rules that Hugo uses to transform your content into the HTML that the site will serve to visitors.
54
55You have two ways to create a skin. The simplest way is to create it in the ```layouts/``` directory. If you do, then you don’t have to worry about configuring Hugo to recognize it. The first place that Hugo will look for rules and files is in the ```layouts/``` directory so it will always find the skin.
56
57Your second choice is to create it in a sub-directory of the ```themes/``` directory. If you do, then you must always tell Hugo where to search for the skin. It’s extra work, though, so why bother with it?
58
59The difference between creating a skin in ```layouts/``` and creating it in ```themes/``` is very subtle. A skin in ```layouts/``` can’t be customized without updating the templates and static files that it is built from. A skin created in ```themes/```, on the other hand, can be and that makes it easier for other people to use it.
60
61The rest of this tutorial will call a skin created in the ```themes/``` directory a theme.
62
63Note that you can use this tutorial to create a skin in the ```layouts/``` directory if you wish to. The main difference will be that you won’t need to update the site’s configuration file to use a theme.
64
65### The Home Page
66
67The home page, or landing page, is the first page that many visitors to a site see. It is the index.html file in the root directory of the web site. Since Hugo writes files to the public/ directory, our home page is public/index.html.
68
69### Site Configuration File
70
71When Hugo runs, it looks for a configuration file that contains settings that override default values for the entire site. The file can use TOML, YAML, or JSON. I prefer to use TOML for my configuration files. If you prefer to use JSON or YAML, you’ll need to translate my examples. You’ll also need to change the name of the file since Hugo uses the extension to determine how to process it.
72
73Hugo translates Markdown files into HTML. By default, Hugo expects to find Markdown files in your ```content/``` directory and template files in your ```themes/``` directory. It will create HTML files in your ```public/``` directory. You can change this by specifying alternate locations in the configuration file.
74
75### Content
76
77Content is stored in text files that contain two sections. The first section is the “front matter,” which is the meta-information on the content. The second section contains Markdown that will be converted to HTML.
78
79#### Front Matter
80
81The front matter is information about the content. Like the configuration file, it can be written in TOML, YAML, or JSON. Unlike the configuration file, Hugo doesn’t use the file’s extension to know the format. It looks for markers to signal the type. TOML is surrounded by “`---`”, YAML by “`---`”, and JSON is enclosed in curly braces. I prefer to use TOML, so you’ll need to translate my examples if you prefer YAML or JSON.
82
83The information in the front matter is passed into the template before the content is rendered into HTML.
84
85#### Markdown
86
87Content is written in Markdown which makes it easier to create the content. Hugo runs the content through a Markdown engine to create the HTML which will be written to the output file.
88
89### Template Files
90
91Hugo uses template files to render content into HTML. Template files are a bridge between the content and presentation. Rules in the template define what content is published, where it's published to, and how it will rendered to the HTML file. The template guides the presentation by specifying the style to use.
92
93There are three types of templates: single, list, and partial. Each type takes a bit of content as input and transforms it based on the commands in the template.
94
95Hugo uses its knowledge of the content to find the template file used to render the content. If it can’t find a template that is an exact match for the content, it will shift up a level and search from there. It will continue to do so until it finds a matching template or runs out of templates to try. If it can’t find a template, it will use the default template for the site.
96
97Please note that you can use the front matter to influence Hugo’s choice of templates.
98
99#### Single Template
100
101A single template is used to render a single piece of content. For example, an article or post would be a single piece of content and use a single template.
102
103#### List Template
104
105A list template renders a group of related content. That could be a summary of recent postings or all articles in a category. List templates can contain multiple groups.
106
107The homepage template is a special type of list template. Hugo assumes that the home page of your site will act as the portal for the rest of the content in the site.
108
109#### Partial Template
110
111A partial template is a template that can be included in other templates. Partial templates must be called using the “partial” template command. They are very handy for rolling up common behavior. For example, your site may have a banner that all pages use. Instead of copying the text of the banner into every single and list template, you could create a partial with the banner in it. That way if you decide to change the banner, you only have to change the partial template.
112
113## Create a New Site
114
115Let's use Hugo to create a new web site. I'm a Mac user, so I'll create mine in my home directory, in the Sites folder. If you're using Linux, you might have to create the folder first.
116
117The "new site" command will create a skeleton of a site. It will give you the basic directory structure and a useable configuration file.
118
119```shell
120$ hugo new site ~/Sites/zafta
121$ cd ~/Sites/zafta
122$ ls -l
123total 8
124drwxr-xr-x 7 quoha staff 238 Sep 29 16:49 .
125drwxr-xr-x 3 quoha staff 102 Sep 29 16:49 ..
126drwxr-xr-x 2 quoha staff 68 Sep 29 16:49 archetypes
127-rw-r--r-- 1 quoha staff 82 Sep 29 16:49 config.toml
128drwxr-xr-x 2 quoha staff 68 Sep 29 16:49 content
129drwxr-xr-x 2 quoha staff 68 Sep 29 16:49 layouts
130drwxr-xr-x 2 quoha staff 68 Sep 29 16:49 static
131$
132```
133
134Take a look in the content/ directory to confirm that it is empty.
135
136The other directories (archetypes/, layouts/, and static/) are used when customizing a theme. That's a topic for a different tutorial, so please ignore them for now.
137
138### Generate the HTML For the New Site
139
140Running the `hugo` command with no options will read all the available content and generate the HTML files. It will also copy all static files (that's everything that's not content). Since we have an empty site, it won't do much, but it will do it very quickly.
141
142```shell
143$ hugo --verbose
144INFO: 2014/09/29 Using config file: config.toml
145INFO: 2014/09/29 syncing from /Users/quoha/Sites/zafta/static/ to /Users/quoha/Sites/zafta/public/
146WARN: 2014/09/29 Unable to locate layout: [index.html _default/list.html _default/single.html]
147WARN: 2014/09/29 Unable to locate layout: [404.html]
1480 draft content
1490 future content
1500 pages created
1510 tags created
1520 categories created
153in 2 ms
154$
155```
156
157The "`--verbose`" flag gives extra information that will be helpful when we build the template. Every line of the output that starts with "INFO:" or "WARN:" is present because we used that flag. The lines that start with "WARN:" are warning messages. We'll go over them later.
158
159We can verify that the command worked by looking at the directory again.
160
161```shell
162$ ls -l
163total 8
164drwxr-xr-x 2 quoha staff 68 Sep 29 16:49 archetypes
165-rw-r--r-- 1 quoha staff 82 Sep 29 16:49 config.toml
166drwxr-xr-x 2 quoha staff 68 Sep 29 16:49 content
167drwxr-xr-x 2 quoha staff 68 Sep 29 16:49 layouts
168drwxr-xr-x 4 quoha staff 136 Sep 29 17:02 public
169drwxr-xr-x 2 quoha staff 68 Sep 29 16:49 static
170$
171```
172
173See that new public/ directory? Hugo placed all generated content there. When you're ready to publish your web site, that's the place to start. For now, though, let's just confirm that we have what we'd expect from a site with no content.
174
175```shell
176$ ls -l public
177total 16
178-rw-r--r-- 1 quoha staff 416 Sep 29 17:02 index.xml
179-rw-r--r-- 1 quoha staff 262 Sep 29 17:02 sitemap.xml
180$
181```
182
183Hugo created two XML files, which is standard, but there are no HTML files.
184
185
186
187### Test the New Site
188
189Verify that you can run the built-in web server. It will dramatically shorten your development cycle if you do. Start it by running the "server" command. If it is successful, you will see output similar to the following:
190
191```shell
192$ hugo server --verbose
193INFO: 2014/09/29 Using config file: /Users/quoha/Sites/zafta/config.toml
194INFO: 2014/09/29 syncing from /Users/quoha/Sites/zafta/static/ to /Users/quoha/Sites/zafta/public/
195WARN: 2014/09/29 Unable to locate layout: [index.html _default/list.html _default/single.html]
196WARN: 2014/09/29 Unable to locate layout: [404.html]
1970 draft content
1980 future content
1990 pages created
2000 tags created
2010 categories created
202in 2 ms
203Serving pages from /Users/quoha/Sites/zafta/public
204Web Server is available at http://localhost:1313
205Press Ctrl+C to stop
206```
207
208Connect to the listed URL (it's on the line that starts with "Web Server"). If everything is working correctly, you should get a page that shows the following:
209
210```shell
211index.xml
212sitemap.xml
213```
214
215That's a listing of your public/ directory. Hugo didn't create a home page because our site has no content. When there's no index.html file in a directory, the server lists the files in the directory, which is what you should see in your browser.
216
217Let’s go back and look at those warnings again.
218
219```
220WARN: 2014/09/29 Unable to locate layout: [index.html _default/list.html _default/single.html]
221WARN: 2014/09/29 Unable to locate layout: [404.html]
222```
223
224That second warning is easier to explain. We haven’t created a template to be used to generate “page not found errors.” The 404 message is a topic for a separate tutorial.
225
226Now for the first warning. It is for the home page. You can tell because the first layout that it looked for was “index.html.” That’s only used by the home page.
227
228I like that the verbose flag causes Hugo to list the files that it's searching for. For the home page, they are index.html, _default/list.html, and _default/single.html. There are some rules that we'll cover later that explain the names and paths. For now, just remember that Hugo couldn't find a template for the home page and it told you so.
229
230At this point, you've got a working installation and site that we can build upon. All that’s left is to add some content and a theme to display it.
231
232## Create a New Theme
233
234Hugo doesn't ship with a default theme. There are a few available (I counted a dozen when I first installed Hugo) and Hugo comes with a command to create new themes.
235
236We're going to create a new theme called "zafta." Since the goal of this tutorial is to show you how to fill out the files to pull in your content, the theme will not contain any CSS. In other words, ugly but functional.
237
238All themes have opinions on content and layout. For example, Zafta uses "post" over "blog". Strong opinions make for simpler templates but differing opinions make it tougher to use themes. When you build a theme, consider using the terms that other themes do.
239
240
241### Create a Skeleton
242
243Use the hugo "new" command to create the skeleton of a theme. This creates the directory structure and places empty files for you to fill out.
244
245```shell
246$ hugo new theme zafta
247
248$ ls -l
249total 8
250drwxr-xr-x 2 quoha staff 68 Sep 29 16:49 archetypes
251-rw-r--r-- 1 quoha staff 82 Sep 29 16:49 config.toml
252drwxr-xr-x 2 quoha staff 68 Sep 29 16:49 content
253drwxr-xr-x 2 quoha staff 68 Sep 29 16:49 layouts
254drwxr-xr-x 4 quoha staff 136 Sep 29 17:02 public
255drwxr-xr-x 2 quoha staff 68 Sep 29 16:49 static
256drwxr-xr-x 3 quoha staff 102 Sep 29 17:31 themes
257
258$ find themes -type f | xargs ls -l
259-rw-r--r-- 1 quoha staff 1081 Sep 29 17:31 themes/zafta/LICENSE.md
260-rw-r--r-- 1 quoha staff 0 Sep 29 17:31 themes/zafta/archetypes/default.md
261-rw-r--r-- 1 quoha staff 0 Sep 29 17:31 themes/zafta/layouts/_default/list.html
262-rw-r--r-- 1 quoha staff 0 Sep 29 17:31 themes/zafta/layouts/_default/single.html
263-rw-r--r-- 1 quoha staff 0 Sep 29 17:31 themes/zafta/layouts/index.html
264-rw-r--r-- 1 quoha staff 0 Sep 29 17:31 themes/zafta/layouts/partials/footer.html
265-rw-r--r-- 1 quoha staff 0 Sep 29 17:31 themes/zafta/layouts/partials/header.html
266-rw-r--r-- 1 quoha staff 93 Sep 29 17:31 themes/zafta/theme.toml
267$
268```
269
270The skeleton includes templates (the files ending in .html), license file, a description of your theme (the theme.toml file), and an empty archetype.
271
272Please take a minute to fill out the theme.toml and LICENSE.md files. They're optional, but if you're going to be distributing your theme, it tells the world who to praise (or blame). It's also nice to declare the license so that people will know how they can use the theme.
273
274```shell
275$ vi themes/zafta/theme.toml
276author: "michael d henderson"
277description: "a minimal working template"
278license: "MIT"
279name: "zafta"
280source_repo: ""
281tags: ["tags", "categories"]
282:wq
283
284## also edit themes/zafta/LICENSE.md and change
285## the bit that says "YOUR_NAME_HERE"
286```
287
288Note that the the skeleton's template files are empty. Don't worry, we'll be changing that shortly.
289
290```shell
291$ find themes/zafta -name '*.html' | xargs ls -l
292-rw-r--r-- 1 quoha staff 0 Sep 29 17:31 themes/zafta/layouts/_default/list.html
293-rw-r--r-- 1 quoha staff 0 Sep 29 17:31 themes/zafta/layouts/_default/single.html
294-rw-r--r-- 1 quoha staff 0 Sep 29 17:31 themes/zafta/layouts/index.html
295-rw-r--r-- 1 quoha staff 0 Sep 29 17:31 themes/zafta/layouts/partials/footer.html
296-rw-r--r-- 1 quoha staff 0 Sep 29 17:31 themes/zafta/layouts/partials/header.html
297$
298```
299
300### Update the Configuration File to Use the Theme
301
302Now that we've got a theme to work with, it's a good idea to add the theme name to the configuration file. This is optional, because you can always add "-t zafta" on all your commands. I like to put it the configuration file because I like shorter command lines. If you don't put it in the configuration file or specify it on the command line, you won't use the template that you're expecting to.
303
304Edit the file to add the theme, add a title for the site, and specify that all of our content will use the TOML format.
305
306```shell
307$ vi config.toml
308theme: "zafta"
309baseurl: ""
310languageCode: "en-us"
311title: "zafta - totally refreshing"
312MetaDataFormat: "toml"
313:wq
314
315$
316```
317
318### Generate the Site
319
320Now that we have an empty theme, let's generate the site again.
321
322```shell
323$ hugo --verbose
324INFO: 2014/09/29 Using config file: /Users/quoha/Sites/zafta/config.toml
325INFO: 2014/09/29 syncing from /Users/quoha/Sites/zafta/themes/zafta/static/ to /Users/quoha/Sites/zafta/public/
326INFO: 2014/09/29 syncing from /Users/quoha/Sites/zafta/static/ to /Users/quoha/Sites/zafta/public/
327WARN: 2014/09/29 Unable to locate layout: [404.html theme/404.html]
3280 draft content
3290 future content
3300 pages created
3310 tags created
3320 categories created
333in 2 ms
334$
335```
336
337Did you notice that the output is different? The warning message for the home page has disappeared and we have an additional information line saying that Hugo is syncing from the theme's directory.
338
339Let's check the public/ directory to see what Hugo's created.
340
341```shell
342$ ls -l public
343total 16
344drwxr-xr-x 2 quoha staff 68 Sep 29 17:56 css
345-rw-r--r-- 1 quoha staff 0 Sep 29 17:56 index.html
346-rw-r--r-- 1 quoha staff 407 Sep 29 17:56 index.xml
347drwxr-xr-x 2 quoha staff 68 Sep 29 17:56 js
348-rw-r--r-- 1 quoha staff 243 Sep 29 17:56 sitemap.xml
349$
350```
351
352Notice four things:
353
3541. Hugo created a home page. This is the file public/index.html.
3552. Hugo created a css/ directory.
3563. Hugo created a js/ directory.
3574. Hugo claimed that it created 0 pages. It created a file and copied over static files, but didn't create any pages. That's because it considers a "page" to be a file created directly from a content file. It doesn't count things like the index.html files that it creates automatically.
358
359#### The Home Page
360
361Hugo supports many different types of templates. The home page is special because it gets its own type of template and its own template file. The file, layouts/index.html, is used to generate the HTML for the home page. The Hugo documentation says that this is the only required template, but that depends. Hugo's warning message shows that it looks for three different templates:
362
363```
364WARN: 2014/09/29 Unable to locate layout: [index.html _default/list.html _default/single.html]
365```
366
367If it can't find any of these, it completely skips creating the home page. We noticed that when we built the site without having a theme installed.
368
369When Hugo created our theme, it created an empty home page template. Now, when we build the site, Hugo finds the template and uses it to generate the HTML for the home page. Since the template file is empty, the HTML file is empty, too. If the template had any rules in it, then Hugo would have used them to generate the home page.
370
371```shell
372$ find . -name index.html | xargs ls -l
373-rw-r--r-- 1 quoha staff 0 Sep 29 20:21 ./public/index.html
374-rw-r--r-- 1 quoha staff 0 Sep 29 17:31 ./themes/zafta/layouts/index.html
375$
376```
377
378#### The Magic of Static
379
380Hugo does two things when generating the site. It uses templates to transform content into HTML and it copies static files into the site. Unlike content, static files are not transformed. They are copied exactly as they are.
381
382Hugo assumes that your site will use both CSS and JavaScript, so it creates directories in your theme to hold them. Remember opinions? Well, Hugo's opinion is that you'll store your CSS in a directory named css/ and your JavaScript in a directory named js/. If you don't like that, you can change the directory names in your theme directory or even delete them completely. Hugo's nice enough to offer its opinion, then behave nicely if you disagree.
383
384```shell
385$ find themes/zafta -type d | xargs ls -ld
386drwxr-xr-x 7 quoha staff 238 Sep 29 17:38 themes/zafta
387drwxr-xr-x 3 quoha staff 102 Sep 29 17:31 themes/zafta/archetypes
388drwxr-xr-x 5 quoha staff 170 Sep 29 17:31 themes/zafta/layouts
389drwxr-xr-x 4 quoha staff 136 Sep 29 17:31 themes/zafta/layouts/_default
390drwxr-xr-x 4 quoha staff 136 Sep 29 17:31 themes/zafta/layouts/partials
391drwxr-xr-x 4 quoha staff 136 Sep 29 17:31 themes/zafta/static
392drwxr-xr-x 2 quoha staff 68 Sep 29 17:31 themes/zafta/static/css
393drwxr-xr-x 2 quoha staff 68 Sep 29 17:31 themes/zafta/static/js
394$
395```
396
397## The Theme Development Cycle
398
399When you're working on a theme, you will make changes in the theme's directory, rebuild the site, and check your changes in the browser. Hugo makes this very easy:
400
4011. Purge the public/ directory.
4022. Run the built in web server in watch mode.
4033. Open your site in a browser.
4044. Update the theme.
4055. Glance at your browser window to see changes.
4066. Return to step 4.
407
408I’ll throw in one more opinion: never work on a theme on a live site. Always work on a copy of your site. Make changes to your theme, test them, then copy them up to your site. For added safety, use a tool like Git to keep a revision history of your content and your theme. Believe me when I say that it is too easy to lose both your mind and your changes.
409
410Check the main Hugo site for information on using Git with Hugo.
411
412### Purge the public/ Directory
413
414When generating the site, Hugo will create new files and update existing ones in the ```public/``` directory. It will not delete files that are no longer used. For example, files that were created in the wrong directory or with the wrong title will remain. If you leave them, you might get confused by them later. I recommend cleaning out your site prior to generating it.
415
416Note: If you're building on an SSD, you should ignore this. Churning on a SSD can be costly.
417
418### Hugo's Watch Option
419
420Hugo's "`--watch`" option will monitor the content/ and your theme directories for changes and rebuild the site automatically.
421
422### Live Reload
423
424Hugo's built in web server supports live reload. As pages are saved on the server, the browser is told to refresh the page. Usually, this happens faster than you can say, "Wow, that's totally amazing."
425
426### Development Commands
427
428Use the following commands as the basis for your workflow.
429
430```
431## purge old files. hugo will recreate the public directory.
432##
433$ rm -rf public
434##
435## run hugo in watch mode
436##
437$ hugo server --watch --verbose
438```
439
440Here's sample output showing Hugo detecting a change to the template for the home page. Once generated, the web browser automatically reloaded the page. I've said this before, it's amazing.
441
442
443```shell
444$ rm -rf public
445$ hugo server --watch --verbose
446INFO: 2014/09/29 Using config file: /Users/quoha/Sites/zafta/config.toml
447INFO: 2014/09/29 syncing from /Users/quoha/Sites/zafta/themes/zafta/static/ to /Users/quoha/Sites/zafta/public/
448INFO: 2014/09/29 syncing from /Users/quoha/Sites/zafta/static/ to /Users/quoha/Sites/zafta/public/
449WARN: 2014/09/29 Unable to locate layout: [404.html theme/404.html]
4500 draft content
4510 future content
4520 pages created
4530 tags created
4540 categories created
455in 2 ms
456Watching for changes in /Users/quoha/Sites/zafta/content
457Serving pages from /Users/quoha/Sites/zafta/public
458Web Server is available at http://localhost:1313
459Press Ctrl+C to stop
460INFO: 2014/09/29 File System Event: ["/Users/quoha/Sites/zafta/themes/zafta/layouts/index.html": MODIFY|ATTRIB]
461Change detected, rebuilding site
462
463WARN: 2014/09/29 Unable to locate layout: [404.html theme/404.html]
4640 draft content
4650 future content
4660 pages created
4670 tags created
4680 categories created
469in 1 ms
470```
471
472## Update the Home Page Template
473
474The home page is one of a few special pages that Hugo creates automatically. As mentioned earlier, it looks for one of three files in the theme's layout/ directory:
475
4761. index.html
4772. _default/list.html
4783. _default/single.html
479
480We could update one of the default templates, but a good design decision is to update the most specific template available. That's not a hard and fast rule (in fact, we'll break it a few times in this tutorial), but it is a good generalization.
481
482### Make a Static Home Page
483
484Right now, that page is empty because we don't have any content and we don't have any logic in the template. Let's change that by adding some text to the template.
485
486```shell
487$ vi themes/zafta/layouts/index.html
488<!DOCTYPE html>
489<html>
490<body>
491 <p>hugo says hello!</p>
492</body>
493</html>
494:wq
495
496$
497```
498
499Build the web site and then verify the results.
500
501```shell
502$ hugo --verbose
503INFO: 2014/09/29 Using config file: /Users/quoha/Sites/zafta/config.toml
504INFO: 2014/09/29 syncing from /Users/quoha/Sites/zafta/themes/zafta/static/ to /Users/quoha/Sites/zafta/public/
505INFO: 2014/09/29 syncing from /Users/quoha/Sites/zafta/static/ to /Users/quoha/Sites/zafta/public/
506WARN: 2014/09/29 Unable to locate layout: [404.html theme/404.html]
5070 draft content
5080 future content
5090 pages created
5100 tags created
5110 categories created
512in 2 ms
513
514$ find public -type f -name '*.html' | xargs ls -l
515-rw-r--r-- 1 quoha staff 78 Sep 29 21:26 public/index.html
516
517$ cat public/index.html
518<!DOCTYPE html>
519<html>
520<body>
521 <p>hugo says hello!</p>
522</html>
523```
524
525#### Live Reload
526
527Note: If you're running the server with the `--watch` option, you'll see different content in the file:
528
529```shell
530$ cat public/index.html
531<!DOCTYPE html>
532<html>
533<body>
534 <p>hugo says hello!</p>
535<script>document.write('<script src="http://'
536 + (location.host || 'localhost').split(':')[0]
537 + ':1313/livereload.js?mindelay=10"></'
538 + 'script>')</script></body>
539</html>
540```
541
542When you use `--watch`, the Live Reload script is added by Hugo. Look for live reload in the documentation to see what it does and how to disable it.
543
544### Build a "Dynamic" Home Page
545
546"Dynamic home page?" Hugo's a static web site generator, so this seems an odd thing to say. I mean let's have the home page automatically reflect the content in the site every time Hugo builds it. We'll use iteration in the template to do that.
547
548#### Create New Posts
549
550Now that we have the home page generating static content, let's add some content to the site. We'll display these posts as a list on the home page and on their own page, too.
551
552Hugo has a command to generate a skeleton post, just like it does for sites and themes.
553
554```shell
555$ hugo --verbose new post/first.md
556INFO: 2014/09/29 Using config file: /Users/quoha/Sites/zafta/config.toml
557INFO: 2014/09/29 attempting to create post/first.md of post
558INFO: 2014/09/29 curpath: /Users/quoha/Sites/zafta/themes/zafta/archetypes/default.md
559ERROR: 2014/09/29 Unable to Cast <nil> to map[string]interface{}
560
561$
562```
563
564That wasn't very nice, was it?
565
566The "new" command uses an archetype to create the post file. Hugo created an empty default archetype file, but that causes an error when there's a theme. For me, the workaround was to create an archetypes file specifically for the post type.
567
568```shell
569$ vi themes/zafta/archetypes/post.md
570---
571Description: ""
572Tags: []
573Categories: []
574---
575:wq
576
577$ find themes/zafta/archetypes -type f | xargs ls -l
578-rw-r--r-- 1 quoha staff 0 Sep 29 21:53 themes/zafta/archetypes/default.md
579-rw-r--r-- 1 quoha staff 51 Sep 29 21:54 themes/zafta/archetypes/post.md
580
581$ hugo --verbose new post/first.md
582INFO: 2014/09/29 Using config file: /Users/quoha/Sites/zafta/config.toml
583INFO: 2014/09/29 attempting to create post/first.md of post
584INFO: 2014/09/29 curpath: /Users/quoha/Sites/zafta/themes/zafta/archetypes/post.md
585INFO: 2014/09/29 creating /Users/quoha/Sites/zafta/content/post/first.md
586/Users/quoha/Sites/zafta/content/post/first.md created
587
588$ hugo --verbose new post/second.md
589INFO: 2014/09/29 Using config file: /Users/quoha/Sites/zafta/config.toml
590INFO: 2014/09/29 attempting to create post/second.md of post
591INFO: 2014/09/29 curpath: /Users/quoha/Sites/zafta/themes/zafta/archetypes/post.md
592INFO: 2014/09/29 creating /Users/quoha/Sites/zafta/content/post/second.md
593/Users/quoha/Sites/zafta/content/post/second.md created
594
595$ ls -l content/post
596total 16
597-rw-r--r-- 1 quoha staff 104 Sep 29 21:54 first.md
598-rw-r--r-- 1 quoha staff 105 Sep 29 21:57 second.md
599
600$ cat content/post/first.md
601---
602Categories: []
603Description: ""
604Tags: []
605date: "2014-09-29T21:54:53-05:00"
606title: "first"
607
608---
609my first post
610
611$ cat content/post/second.md
612---
613Categories: []
614Description: ""
615Tags: []
616date: "2014-09-29T21:57:09-05:00"
617title: "second"
618
619---
620my second post
621
622$
623```
624
625Build the web site and then verify the results.
626
627```shell
628$ rm -rf public
629$ hugo --verbose
630INFO: 2014/09/29 Using config file: /Users/quoha/Sites/zafta/config.toml
631INFO: 2014/09/29 syncing from /Users/quoha/Sites/zafta/themes/zafta/static/ to /Users/quoha/Sites/zafta/public/
632INFO: 2014/09/29 syncing from /Users/quoha/Sites/zafta/static/ to /Users/quoha/Sites/zafta/public/
633INFO: 2014/09/29 found taxonomies: map[string]string{"category":"categories", "tag":"tags"}
634WARN: 2014/09/29 Unable to locate layout: [404.html theme/404.html]
6350 draft content
6360 future content
6372 pages created
6380 tags created
6390 categories created
640in 4 ms
641$
642```
643
644The output says that it created 2 pages. Those are our new posts:
645
646```shell
647$ find public -type f -name '*.html' | xargs ls -l
648-rw-r--r-- 1 quoha staff 78 Sep 29 22:13 public/index.html
649-rw-r--r-- 1 quoha staff 0 Sep 29 22:13 public/post/first/index.html
650-rw-r--r-- 1 quoha staff 0 Sep 29 22:13 public/post/index.html
651-rw-r--r-- 1 quoha staff 0 Sep 29 22:13 public/post/second/index.html
652$
653```
654
655The new files are empty because because the templates used to generate the content are empty. The homepage doesn't show the new content, either. We have to update the templates to add the posts.
656
657### List and Single Templates
658
659In Hugo, we have three major kinds of templates. There's the home page template that we updated previously. It is used only by the home page. We also have "single" templates which are used to generate output for a single content file. We also have "list" templates that are used to group multiple pieces of content before generating output.
660
661Generally speaking, list templates are named "list.html" and single templates are named "single.html."
662
663There are three other types of templates: partials, content views, and terms. We will not go into much detail on these.
664
665### Add Content to the Homepage
666
667The home page will contain a list of posts. Let's update its template to add the posts that we just created. The logic in the template will run every time we build the site.
668
669```shell
670$ vi themes/zafta/layouts/index.html
671<!DOCTYPE html>
672<html>
673<body>
674 {{ range first 10 .Data.Pages }}
675 <h1>{{ .Title }}</h1>
676 {{ end }}
677</body>
678</html>
679:wq
680
681$
682```
683
684Hugo uses the Go template engine. That engine scans the template files for commands which are enclosed between "{{" and "}}". In our template, the commands are:
685
6861. range
6872. .Title
6883. end
689
690The "range" command is an iterator. We're going to use it to go through the first ten pages. Every HTML file that Hugo creates is treated as a page, so looping through the list of pages will look at every file that will be created.
691
692The ".Title" command prints the value of the "title" variable. Hugo pulls it from the front matter in the Markdown file.
693
694The "end" command signals the end of the range iterator. The engine loops back to the top of the iteration when it finds "end." Everything between the "range" and "end" is evaluated every time the engine goes through the iteration. In this file, that would cause the title from the first ten pages to be output as heading level one.
695
696It's helpful to remember that some variables, like .Data, are created before any output files. Hugo loads every content file into the variable and then gives the template a chance to process before creating the HTML files.
697
698Build the web site and then verify the results.
699
700```shell
701$ rm -rf public
702$ hugo --verbose
703INFO: 2014/09/29 Using config file: /Users/quoha/Sites/zafta/config.toml
704INFO: 2014/09/29 syncing from /Users/quoha/Sites/zafta/themes/zafta/static/ to /Users/quoha/Sites/zafta/public/
705INFO: 2014/09/29 syncing from /Users/quoha/Sites/zafta/static/ to /Users/quoha/Sites/zafta/public/
706INFO: 2014/09/29 found taxonomies: map[string]string{"tag":"tags", "category":"categories"}
707WARN: 2014/09/29 Unable to locate layout: [404.html theme/404.html]
7080 draft content
7090 future content
7102 pages created
7110 tags created
7120 categories created
713in 4 ms
714$ find public -type f -name '*.html' | xargs ls -l
715-rw-r--r-- 1 quoha staff 94 Sep 29 22:23 public/index.html
716-rw-r--r-- 1 quoha staff 0 Sep 29 22:23 public/post/first/index.html
717-rw-r--r-- 1 quoha staff 0 Sep 29 22:23 public/post/index.html
718-rw-r--r-- 1 quoha staff 0 Sep 29 22:23 public/post/second/index.html
719$ cat public/index.html
720<!DOCTYPE html>
721<html>
722<body>
723
724 <h1>second</h1>
725
726 <h1>first</h1>
727
728</body>
729</html>
730$
731```
732
733Congratulations, the home page shows the title of the two posts. The posts themselves are still empty, but let's take a moment to appreciate what we've done. Your template now generates output dynamically. Believe it or not, by inserting the range command inside of those curly braces, you've learned everything you need to know to build a theme. All that's really left is understanding which template will be used to generate each content file and becoming familiar with the commands for the template engine.
734
735And, if that were entirely true, this tutorial would be much shorter. There are a few things to know that will make creating a new template much easier. Don't worry, though, that's all to come.
736
737### Add Content to the Posts
738
739We're working with posts, which are in the content/post/ directory. That means that their section is "post" (and if we don't do something weird, their type is also "post").
740
741Hugo uses the section and type to find the template file for every piece of content. Hugo will first look for a template file that matches the section or type name. If it can't find one, then it will look in the _default/ directory. There are some twists that we'll cover when we get to categories and tags, but for now we can assume that Hugo will try post/single.html, then _default/single.html.
742
743Now that we know the search rule, let's see what we actually have available:
744
745```shell
746$ find themes/zafta -name single.html | xargs ls -l
747-rw-r--r-- 1 quoha staff 132 Sep 29 17:31 themes/zafta/layouts/_default/single.html
748```
749
750We could create a new template, post/single.html, or change the default. Since we don't know of any other content types, let's start with updating the default.
751
752Remember, any content that we haven't created a template for will end up using this template. That can be good or bad. Bad because I know that we're going to be adding different types of content and we're going to end up undoing some of the changes we've made. It's good because we'll be able to see immediate results. It's also good to start here because we can start to build the basic layout for the site. As we add more content types, we'll refactor this file and move logic around. Hugo makes that fairly painless, so we'll accept the cost and proceed.
753
754Please see the Hugo documentation on template rendering for all the details on determining which template to use. And, as the docs mention, if you're building a single page application (SPA) web site, you can delete all of the other templates and work with just the default single page. That's a refreshing amount of joy right there.
755
756#### Update the Template File
757
758```shell
759$ vi themes/zafta/layouts/_default/single.html
760<!DOCTYPE html>
761<html>
762<head>
763 <title>{{ .Title }}</title>
764</head>
765<body>
766 <h1>{{ .Title }}</h1>
767 {{ .Content }}
768</body>
769</html>
770:wq
771
772$
773```
774
775Build the web site and verify the results.
776
777```shell
778$ rm -rf public
779$ hugo --verbose
780INFO: 2014/09/29 Using config file: /Users/quoha/Sites/zafta/config.toml
781INFO: 2014/09/29 syncing from /Users/quoha/Sites/zafta/themes/zafta/static/ to /Users/quoha/Sites/zafta/public/
782INFO: 2014/09/29 syncing from /Users/quoha/Sites/zafta/static/ to /Users/quoha/Sites/zafta/public/
783INFO: 2014/09/29 found taxonomies: map[string]string{"tag":"tags", "category":"categories"}
784WARN: 2014/09/29 Unable to locate layout: [404.html theme/404.html]
7850 draft content
7860 future content
7872 pages created
7880 tags created
7890 categories created
790in 4 ms
791
792$ find public -type f -name '*.html' | xargs ls -l
793-rw-r--r-- 1 quoha staff 94 Sep 29 22:40 public/index.html
794-rw-r--r-- 1 quoha staff 125 Sep 29 22:40 public/post/first/index.html
795-rw-r--r-- 1 quoha staff 0 Sep 29 22:40 public/post/index.html
796-rw-r--r-- 1 quoha staff 128 Sep 29 22:40 public/post/second/index.html
797
798$ cat public/post/first/index.html
799<!DOCTYPE html>
800<html>
801<head>
802 <title>first</title>
803</head>
804<body>
805 <h1>first</h1>
806 <p>my first post</p>
807
808</body>
809</html>
810
811$ cat public/post/second/index.html
812<!DOCTYPE html>
813<html>
814<head>
815 <title>second</title>
816</head>
817<body>
818 <h1>second</h1>
819 <p>my second post</p>
820
821</body>
822</html>
823$
824```
825
826Notice that the posts now have content. You can go to localhost:1313/post/first to verify.
827
828### Linking to Content
829
830The posts are on the home page. Let's add a link from there to the post. Since this is the home page, we'll update its template.
831
832```shell
833$ vi themes/zafta/layouts/index.html
834<!DOCTYPE html>
835<html>
836<body>
837 {{ range first 10 .Data.Pages }}
838 <h1><a href="{{ .Permalink }}">{{ .Title }}</a></h1>
839 {{ end }}
840</body>
841</html>
842```
843
844Build the web site and verify the results.
845
846```shell
847$ rm -rf public
848$ hugo --verbose
849INFO: 2014/09/29 Using config file: /Users/quoha/Sites/zafta/config.toml
850INFO: 2014/09/29 syncing from /Users/quoha/Sites/zafta/themes/zafta/static/ to /Users/quoha/Sites/zafta/public/
851INFO: 2014/09/29 syncing from /Users/quoha/Sites/zafta/static/ to /Users/quoha/Sites/zafta/public/
852INFO: 2014/09/29 found taxonomies: map[string]string{"tag":"tags", "category":"categories"}
853WARN: 2014/09/29 Unable to locate layout: [404.html theme/404.html]
8540 draft content
8550 future content
8562 pages created
8570 tags created
8580 categories created
859in 4 ms
860
861$ find public -type f -name '*.html' | xargs ls -l
862-rw-r--r-- 1 quoha staff 149 Sep 29 22:44 public/index.html
863-rw-r--r-- 1 quoha staff 125 Sep 29 22:44 public/post/first/index.html
864-rw-r--r-- 1 quoha staff 0 Sep 29 22:44 public/post/index.html
865-rw-r--r-- 1 quoha staff 128 Sep 29 22:44 public/post/second/index.html
866
867$ cat public/index.html
868<!DOCTYPE html>
869<html>
870<body>
871
872 <h1><a href="/post/second/">second</a></h1>
873
874 <h1><a href="/post/first/">first</a></h1>
875
876</body>
877</html>
878
879$
880```
881
882### Create a Post Listing
883
884We have the posts displaying on the home page and on their own page. We also have a file public/post/index.html that is empty. Let's make it show a list of all posts (not just the first ten).
885
886We need to decide which template to update. This will be a listing, so it should be a list template. Let's take a quick look and see which list templates are available.
887
888```shell
889$ find themes/zafta -name list.html | xargs ls -l
890-rw-r--r-- 1 quoha staff 0 Sep 29 17:31 themes/zafta/layouts/_default/list.html
891```
892
893As with the single post, we have to decide to update _default/list.html or create post/list.html. We still don't have multiple content types, so let's stay consistent and update the default list template.
894
895## Creating Top Level Pages
896
897Let's add an "about" page and display it at the top level (as opposed to a sub-level like we did with posts).
898
899The default in Hugo is to use the directory structure of the content/ directory to guide the location of the generated html in the public/ directory. Let's verify that by creating an "about" page at the top level:
900
901```shell
902$ vi content/about.md
903---
904title: "about"
905description: "about this site"
906date: "2014-09-27"
907slug: "about time"
908---
909
910## about us
911
912i'm speechless
913:wq
914```
915
916Generate the web site and verify the results.
917
918```shell
919$ find public -name '*.html' | xargs ls -l
920-rw-rw-r-- 1 mdhender staff 334 Sep 27 15:08 public/about-time/index.html
921-rw-rw-r-- 1 mdhender staff 527 Sep 27 15:08 public/index.html
922-rw-rw-r-- 1 mdhender staff 358 Sep 27 15:08 public/post/first-post/index.html
923-rw-rw-r-- 1 mdhender staff 0 Sep 27 15:08 public/post/index.html
924-rw-rw-r-- 1 mdhender staff 342 Sep 27 15:08 public/post/second-post/index.html
925```
926
927Notice that the page wasn't created at the top level. It was created in a sub-directory named 'about-time/'. That name came from our slug. Hugo will use the slug to name the generated content. It's a reasonable default, by the way, but we can learn a few things by fighting it for this file.
928
929One other thing. Take a look at the home page.
930
931```shell
932$ cat public/index.html
933<!DOCTYPE html>
934<html>
935<body>
936 <h1><a href="http://localhost:1313/post/theme/">creating a new theme</a></h1>
937 <h1><a href="http://localhost:1313/about-time/">about</a></h1>
938 <h1><a href="http://localhost:1313/post/second-post/">second</a></h1>
939 <h1><a href="http://localhost:1313/post/first-post/">first</a></h1>
940<script>document.write('<script src="http://'
941 + (location.host || 'localhost').split(':')[0]
942 + ':1313/livereload.js?mindelay=10"></'
943 + 'script>')</script></body>
944</html>
945```
946
947Notice that the "about" link is listed with the posts? That's not desirable, so let's change that first.
948
949```shell
950$ vi themes/zafta/layouts/index.html
951<!DOCTYPE html>
952<html>
953<body>
954 <h1>posts</h1>
955 {{ range first 10 .Data.Pages }}
956 {{ if eq .Type "post"}}
957 <h2><a href="{{ .Permalink }}">{{ .Title }}</a></h2>
958 {{ end }}
959 {{ end }}
960
961 <h1>pages</h1>
962 {{ range .Data.Pages }}
963 {{ if eq .Type "page" }}
964 <h2><a href="{{ .Permalink }}">{{ .Title }}</a></h2>
965 {{ end }}
966 {{ end }}
967</body>
968</html>
969:wq
970```
971
972Generate the web site and verify the results. The home page has two sections, posts and pages, and each section has the right set of headings and links in it.
973
974But, that about page still renders to about-time/index.html.
975
976```shell
977$ find public -name '*.html' | xargs ls -l
978-rw-rw-r-- 1 mdhender staff 334 Sep 27 15:33 public/about-time/index.html
979-rw-rw-r-- 1 mdhender staff 645 Sep 27 15:33 public/index.html
980-rw-rw-r-- 1 mdhender staff 358 Sep 27 15:33 public/post/first-post/index.html
981-rw-rw-r-- 1 mdhender staff 0 Sep 27 15:33 public/post/index.html
982-rw-rw-r-- 1 mdhender staff 342 Sep 27 15:33 public/post/second-post/index.html
983```
984
985Knowing that hugo is using the slug to generate the file name, the simplest solution is to change the slug. Let's do it the hard way and change the permalink in the configuration file.
986
987```shell
988$ vi config.toml
989[permalinks]
990 page: "/:title/"
991 about: "/:filename/"
992```
993
994Generate the web site and verify that this didn't work. Hugo lets "slug" or "URL" override the permalinks setting in the configuration file. Go ahead and comment out the slug in content/about.md, then generate the web site to get it to be created in the right place.
995
996## Sharing Templates
997
998If you've been following along, you probably noticed that posts have titles in the browser and the home page doesn't. That's because we didn't put the title in the home page's template (layouts/index.html). That's an easy thing to do, but let's look at a different option.
999
1000We can put the common bits into a shared template that's stored in the themes/zafta/layouts/partials/ directory.
1001
1002### Create the Header and Footer Partials
1003
1004In Hugo, a partial is a sugar-coated template. Normally a template reference has a path specified. Partials are different. Hugo searches for them along a TODO defined search path. This makes it easier for end-users to override the theme's presentation.
1005
1006```shell
1007$ vi themes/zafta/layouts/partials/header.html
1008<!DOCTYPE html>
1009<html>
1010<head>
1011 <title>{{ .Title }}</title>
1012</head>
1013<body>
1014:wq
1015
1016$ vi themes/zafta/layouts/partials/footer.html
1017</body>
1018</html>
1019:wq
1020```
1021
1022### Update the Home Page Template to Use the Partials
1023
1024The most noticeable difference between a template call and a partials call is the lack of path:
1025
1026```
1027{{ template "theme/partials/header.html" . }}
1028```
1029versus
1030```
1031{{ partial "header.html" . }}
1032```
1033Both pass in the context.
1034
1035Let's change the home page template to use these new partials.
1036
1037```shell
1038$ vi themes/zafta/layouts/index.html
1039{{ partial "header.html" . }}
1040
1041 <h1>posts</h1>
1042 {{ range first 10 .Data.Pages }}
1043 {{ if eq .Type "post"}}
1044 <h2><a href="{{ .Permalink }}">{{ .Title }}</a></h2>
1045 {{ end }}
1046 {{ end }}
1047
1048 <h1>pages</h1>
1049 {{ range .Data.Pages }}
1050 {{ if or (eq .Type "page") (eq .Type "about") }}
1051 <h2><a href="{{ .Permalink }}">{{ .Type }} - {{ .Title }} - {{ .RelPermalink }}</a></h2>
1052 {{ end }}
1053 {{ end }}
1054
1055{{ partial "footer.html" . }}
1056:wq
1057```
1058
1059Generate the web site and verify the results. The title on the home page is now "your title here", which comes from the "title" variable in the config.toml file.
1060
1061### Update the Default Single Template to Use the Partials
1062
1063```shell
1064$ vi themes/zafta/layouts/_default/single.html
1065{{ partial "header.html" . }}
1066
1067 <h1>{{ .Title }}</h1>
1068 {{ .Content }}
1069
1070{{ partial "footer.html" . }}
1071:wq
1072```
1073
1074Generate the web site and verify the results. The title on the posts and the about page should both reflect the value in the markdown file.
1075
1076## Add “Date Published” to Posts
1077
1078It's common to have posts display the date that they were written or published, so let's add that. The front matter of our posts has a variable named "date." It's usually the date the content was created, but let's pretend that's the value we want to display.
1079
1080### Add “Date Published” to the Template
1081
1082We'll start by updating the template used to render the posts. The template code will look like:
1083
1084```
1085{{ .Date.Format "Mon, Jan 2, 2006" }}
1086```
1087
1088Posts use the default single template, so we'll change that file.
1089
1090```shell
1091$ vi themes/zafta/layouts/_default/single.html
1092{{ partial "header.html" . }}
1093
1094 <h1>{{ .Title }}</h1>
1095 <h2>{{ .Date.Format "Mon, Jan 2, 2006" }}</h2>
1096 {{ .Content }}
1097
1098{{ partial "footer.html" . }}
1099:wq
1100```
1101
1102Generate the web site and verify the results. The posts now have the date displayed in them. There's a problem, though. The "about" page also has the date displayed.
1103
1104As usual, there are a couple of ways to make the date display only on posts. We could do an "if" statement like we did on the home page. Another way would be to create a separate template for posts.
1105
1106The "if" solution works for sites that have just a couple of content types. It aligns with the principle of "code for today," too.
1107
1108Let's assume, though, that we've made our site so complex that we feel we have to create a new template type. In Hugo-speak, we're going to create a section template.
1109
1110Let's restore the default single template before we forget.
1111
1112```shell
1113$ mkdir themes/zafta/layouts/post
1114$ vi themes/zafta/layouts/_default/single.html
1115{{ partial "header.html" . }}
1116
1117 <h1>{{ .Title }}</h1>
1118 {{ .Content }}
1119
1120{{ partial "footer.html" . }}
1121:wq
1122```
1123
1124Now we'll update the post's version of the single template. If you remember Hugo's rules, the template engine will use this version over the default.
1125
1126```shell
1127$ vi themes/zafta/layouts/post/single.html
1128{{ partial "header.html" . }}
1129
1130 <h1>{{ .Title }}</h1>
1131 <h2>{{ .Date.Format "Mon, Jan 2, 2006" }}</h2>
1132 {{ .Content }}
1133
1134{{ partial "footer.html" . }}
1135:wq
1136
1137```
1138
1139Note that we removed the date logic from the default template and put it in the post template. Generate the web site and verify the results. Posts have dates and the about page doesn't.
1140
1141### Don't Repeat Yourself
1142
1143DRY is a good design goal and Hugo does a great job supporting it. Part of the art of a good template is knowing when to add a new template and when to update an existing one. While you're figuring that out, accept that you'll be doing some refactoring. Hugo makes that easy and fast, so it's okay to delay splitting up a template.