Menus

Create menus by defining entries, localizing each entry, and rendering the resulting data structure.

Overview

To create a menu for your site:

Define the menu entries
Localize each entry
Render the menu with a template

Create multiple menus, either flat or nested. For example, create a main menu for the header, and a separate menu for the footer.

There are three ways to define menu entries:

Automatically
In front matter
In site configuration

Although you can use these methods in combination when defining a menu, the menu will be easier to conceptualize and maintain if you use one method throughout the site.

Define automatically

To automatically define a menu entry for each top-level section of your site, enable the section pages menu in your site configuration.

sectionPagesMenu: main

sectionPagesMenu = 'main'

{
   "sectionPagesMenu": "main"
}

This creates a menu structure that you can access with site.Menus.main in your templates. See menu templates for details.

Define in front matter

To add a page to the “main” menu:

---
menus: main
title: About
---

+++
menus = 'main'
title = 'About'
+++

{
   "menus": "main",
   "title": "About"
}

Access the entry with site.Menus.main in your templates. See menu templates for details.

To add a page to the “main” and “footer” menus:

---
menus:
- main
- footer
title: Contact
---

+++
menus = ['main', 'footer']
title = 'Contact'
+++

{
   "menus": [
      "main",
      "footer"
   ],
   "title": "Contact"
}

Access the entry with site.Menus.main and site.Menus.footer in your templates. See menu templates for details.

The configuration key in the examples above is menus. The menu (singular) configuration key is an alias for menus.

Properties

Use these properties when defining menu entries in front matter:

identifier: (string) Required when two or more menu entries have the same name, or when localizing the name using translation tables. Must start with a letter, followed by letters, digits, or underscores.
name: (string) The text to display when rendering the menu entry.
params: (map) User-defined properties for the menu entry.
parent: (string) The identifier of the parent menu entry. If identifier is not defined, use name. Required for child entries in a nested menu.
post: (string) The HTML to append when rendering the menu entry.
pre: (string) The HTML to prepend when rendering the menu entry.
title: (string) The HTML title attribute of the rendered menu entry.
weight: (int) A non-zero integer indicating the entry’s position relative the root of the menu, or to its parent for a child entry. Lighter entries float to the top, while heavier entries sink to the bottom.

Example

This front matter menu entry demonstrates some of the available properties:

---
menus:
  main:
    params:
      class: center
    parent: Products
    pre: <i class="fa-solid fa-code"></i>
    weight: 20
title: Software
---

+++
title = 'Software'
[menus]
  [menus.main]
    parent = 'Products'
    pre = '<i class="fa-solid fa-code"></i>'
    weight = 20
    [menus.main.params]
      class = 'center'
+++

{
   "menus": {
      "main": {
         "params": {
            "class": "center"
         },
         "parent": "Products",
         "pre": "\u003ci class=\"fa-solid fa-code\"\u003e\u003c/i\u003e",
         "weight": 20
      }
   },
   "title": "Software"
}

Access the entry with site.Menus.main in your templates. See menu templates for details.

Define in site configuration

See configure menus.

Localize

Hugo provides two methods to localize your menu entries. See multilingual.

Render

See menu templates.

Last updated: March 5, 2025 : content: Consolidate configuration documentation (b6cae5cbc)

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