Configure segments

Segmented rendering offers several advantages:

• Faster builds: Process large sites more efficiently.
• Rapid development: Render only a subset of your site for quicker iteration.
• Scheduled rebuilds: Rebuild specific sections at different frequencies (e.g., home page and news hourly, full site weekly).
• Targeted output: Generate specific output formats (like JSON for search indexes).

Segment definition

Each segment is defined by include and exclude filters:

• Filters: Each segment has zero or more exclude filters and zero or more include filters.
• Matchers: Each filter contains one or more field glob matchers.
• Logic: Matchers within a filter use AND logic. Filters within a section (include or exclude) use OR logic.

Filter fields

Available fields for filtering:

kind

(string) A glob pattern matching the page kind. For example: {taxonomy,term}.

lang

(string) A glob pattern matching the page language. For example: {en,de}.

output

(string) A glob pattern matching the output format of the page. For example: {html,json}.

path

(string) A glob pattern matching the page’s logical path. For example: {/books,/books/**}.

Example

Place broad filters, such as those for language or output format, in the excludes section. For example:

segments:
  segment1:
    excludes:
    - lang: n*
    - lang: en
      output: rss
    includes:
    - kind: '{home,term,taxonomy}'
    - path: '{/docs,/docs/**}'

[segments]
  [segments.segment1]
    [[segments.segment1.excludes]]
      lang = 'n*'
    [[segments.segment1.excludes]]
      lang = 'en'
      output = 'rss'
    [[segments.segment1.includes]]
      kind = '{home,term,taxonomy}'
    [[segments.segment1.includes]]
      path = '{/docs,/docs/**}'

{
   "segments": {
      "segment1": {
         "excludes": [
            {
               "lang": "n*"
            },
            {
               "lang": "en",
               "output": "rss"
            }
         ],
         "includes": [
            {
               "kind": "{home,term,taxonomy}"
            },
            {
               "path": "{/docs,/docs/**}"
            }
         ]
      }
   }
}

Rendering segments

Render specific segments using the renderSegments configuration or the --renderSegments flag:

hugo --renderSegments segment1

You can configure multiple segments and use a comma-separated list with --renderSegments to render them all.

hugo --renderSegments segment1,segment2