CONTENT MANAGEMENT

Shortcodes

What a shortcode is

Hugo loves Markdown because of its simple content format, but there are times when Markdown falls short. Often, content authors are forced to add raw HTML (e.g., video <iframe>’s) to Markdown content. We think this contradicts the beautiful simplicity of Markdown’s syntax.

Hugo created shortcodes to circumvent these limitations.

A shortcode is a simple snippet inside a content file that Hugo will render using a predefined template. Note that shortcodes will not work in template files. If you need the type of drop-in functionality that shortcodes provide but in a template, you most likely want a partial template instead.

In addition to cleaner Markdown, shortcodes can be updated any time to reflect new classes, techniques, or standards. At the point of site generation, Hugo shortcodes will easily merge in your changes. You avoid a possibly complicated search and replace operation.

Use shortcodes

In your content files, a shortcode can be called by calling {{% shortcodename parameters %}}. Shortcode parameters are space delimited, and parameters with internal spaces can be quoted.

The first word in the shortcode declaration is always the name of the shortcode. Parameters follow the name. Depending upon how the shortcode is defined, the parameters may be named, positional, or both, although you can’t mix parameter types in a single call. The format for named parameters models that of HTML with the format name="value".

Some shortcodes use or require closing shortcodes. Again like HTML, the opening and closing shortcodes match (name only) with the closing declaration, which is prepended with a slash.

Here are two examples of paired shortcodes:

{{% mdshortcode %}}Stuff to `process` in the *center*.{{% /mdshortcode %}}

{{< highlight go >}} A bunch of code here {{< /highlight >}}

The examples above use two different delimiters, the difference being the % character in the first and the <> characters in the second.

Shortcodes with raw string parameters

You can pass multiple lines as parameters to a shortcode by using raw string literals:

{{<  myshortcode `This is some <b>HTML</b>,
and a new line with a "quoted string".` >}}

Shortcodes with markdown

Shortcodes using the % as the outer-most delimiter will be fully rendered when sent to the content renderer. This means that the rendered output from a shortcode can be part of the page’s table of contents, footnotes, etc.

Shortcodes without markdown

The < character indicates that the shortcode’s inner content does not need further rendering. Often shortcodes without Markdown include internal HTML:

{{< myshortcode >}}<p>Hello <strong>World!</strong></p>{{< /myshortcode >}}

Nested shortcodes

You can call shortcodes within other shortcodes by creating your own templates that leverage the .Parent variable. .Parent allows you to check the context in which the shortcode is being called. See Shortcode templates.

Use Hugo’s built-in shortcodes

Hugo ships with a set of predefined shortcodes that represent very common usage. These shortcodes are provided for author convenience and to keep your Markdown content clean.

figure

figure is an extension of the image syntax in Markdown, which does not provide a shorthand for the more semantic HTML5 <figure> element.

The figure shortcode can use the following named parameters:

src
URL of the image to be displayed.
link
If the image needs to be hyperlinked, URL of the destination.
target
Optional target attribute for the URL if link parameter is set.
rel
Optional rel attribute for the URL if link parameter is set.
alt
Alternate text for the image if the image cannot be displayed.
title
Image title.
caption
Image caption. Markdown within the value of caption will be rendered.
class
class attribute of the HTML figure tag.
height
height attribute of the image.
width
width attribute of the image.
loading
loading attribute of the image.
attr
Image attribution text. Markdown within the value of attr will be rendered.
attrlink
If the attribution text needs to be hyperlinked, URL of the destination.

Example figure input

figure-input-example.md
{{< figure src="elephant.jpg" title="An elephant at sunset" >}}

Example figure output 

<figure>
  <img src="elephant.jpg">
  <figcaption>An elephant at sunset</figcaption>
</figure>

gist

To display a GitHub gist with this URL:

https://gist.github.com/user/50a7482715eac222e230d1e64dd9a89b

Include this in your markdown:

{{< gist user 50a7482715eac222e230d1e64dd9a89b >}}

This will display all files in the gist alphabetically by file name.

To display a specific file within the gist:

{{< gist user 50a7482715eac222e230d1e64dd9a89b 1-template.html >}}

Rendered:

highlight

To display a highlighted code sample:

{{< highlight go-html-template >}}
{{ range .Pages }}
  <h2><a href="{{ .RelPermalink }}">{{ .LinkTitle }}</a></h2>
{{ end }}
{{< /highlight >}}

Rendered:

{{ range .Pages }}
  <h2><a href="{{ .RelPermalink }}">{{ .LinkTitle }}</a></h2>
{{ end }}

To specify one or more highlighting options, include a quotation-encapsulated, comma-separated list:

{{< highlight go-html-template "lineNos=inline, lineNoStart=42" >}}
{{ range .Pages }}
  <h2><a href="{{ .RelPermalink }}">{{ .LinkTitle }}</a></h2>
{{ end }}
{{< /highlight >}}

Rendered:

42{{ range .Pages }}
43  <h2><a href="{{ .RelPermalink }}">{{ .LinkTitle }}</a></h2>
44{{ end }}

instagram

The instagram shortcode uses Facebook’s oEmbed Read feature. The Facebook developer documentation states:

  • This permission or feature requires successful completion of the App Review process before your app can access live data. Learn More
  • This permission or feature is only available with business verification. You may also need to sign additional contracts before your app can access data. Learn More Here

You must obtain an Access Token to use the instagram shortcode.

If your site configuration is private:

hugo.
      
services:
  instagram:
    accessToken: xxx

[services]
  [services.instagram]
    accessToken = 'xxx'

{
   "services": {
      "instagram": {
         "accessToken": "xxx"
      }
   }
}

If your site configuration is not private, set the Access Token with an environment variable:

HUGO_SERVICES_INSTAGRAM_ACCESSTOKEN=xxx hugo --gc --minify

To display an Instagram post with this URL:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BWNjjyYFxVx/

Include this in your markdown:

{{< instagram BWNjjyYFxVx >}}

param

Gets a value from the current Page's parameters set in front matter, with a fallback to the site parameter value. It will log an ERROR if the parameter with the given key could not be found in either.

{{< param testparam >}}

Since testparam is a parameter defined in front matter of this page with the value Hugo Rocks!, the above will print:

Hugo Rocks!

To access deeply nested parameters, use “dot syntax”, e.g:

{{< param "my.nested.param" >}}

ref and relref

These shortcodes will look up the pages by their relative path (e.g., blog/post.md) or their logical name (post.md) and return the permalink (ref) or relative permalink (relref) for the found page.

ref and relref also make it possible to make fragmentary links that work for the header links generated by Hugo.

ref and relref take exactly one required parameter of reference, quoted and in position 0.

Example ref and relref input 

[Neat]({{< ref "blog/neat.md" >}})
[Who]({{< relref "about.md#who" >}})

Example ref and relref output

Assuming that standard Hugo pretty URLs are turned on.

<a href="https://example.com/blog/neat">Neat</a>
<a href="/about/#who">Who</a>

tweet

To display a Twitter post with this URL:

https://twitter.com/SanDiegoZoo/status/1453110110599868418

Include this in your markdown:

{{< tweet user="SanDiegoZoo" id="1453110110599868418" >}}

Rendered:

vimeo

To display a Vimeo video with this URL:

https://vimeo.com/channels/staffpicks/55073825

Include this in your markdown:

{{< vimeo 55073825 >}}

Rendered:

youtube

The youtube shortcode embeds a responsive video player for YouTube videos. Only the ID of the video is required, e.g.:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7Ft2ymGmfc

Example youtube input

Copy the YouTube video ID that follows v= in the video’s URL and pass it to the youtube shortcode:

example-youtube-input.md
{{< youtube w7Ft2ymGmfc >}}

Furthermore, you can automatically start playback of the embedded video by setting the autoplay parameter to true. Remember that you can’t mix named and unnamed parameters, so you’ll need to assign the yet unnamed video ID to the parameter id:

example-youtube-input-with-autoplay.md
{{< youtube id="w7Ft2ymGmfc" autoplay="true" >}}

For accessibility reasons, it’s best to provide a title for your YouTube video. You can do this using the shortcode by providing a title parameter. If no title is provided, a default of “YouTube Video” will be used.

example-youtube-input-with-title.md
{{< youtube id="w7Ft2ymGmfc" title="A New Hugo Site in Under Two Minutes" >}}

Example youtube output

Using the preceding youtube example, the following HTML will be added to your rendered website’s markup:

example-youtube-output.html
<div style="position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden;">
  <iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/w7Ft2ymGmfc?autoplay=1" style="position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; border:0;" allowfullscreen title="YouTube Video"></iframe>
</div>

Example youtube display

Using the preceding youtube example (without autoplay="true"), the following simulates the displayed experience for visitors to your website. Naturally, the final display will be contingent on your style sheets and surrounding markup. The video is also include in the Quick Start of the Hugo documentation.

Privacy configuration

To learn how to configure your Hugo site to meet the new EU privacy regulation, see Hugo and the GDPR.

Create custom shortcodes

To learn more about creating custom shortcodes, see the shortcode template documentation.

See Also

Last updated: August 7, 2023: Add some .RenderShortcodes docs (74d5082c)
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