Configure Hugo

Configuration file

Hugo uses the hugo.toml, hugo.yaml, or hugo.json (if found in the site root) as the default site configuration file.

The user can choose to override that default with one or more site configuration files using the command-line --config switch.

Examples:

hugo --config debugconfig.toml
hugo --config a.toml,b.toml,c.toml

hugo.toml vs config.toml

In Hugo 0.110.0 we changed the default configuration base file name to hugo, e.g. hugo.toml. We will still look for config.toml etc., but we recommend you eventually rename it (but you need to wait if you want to support older Hugo versions). The main reason we’re doing this is to make it easier for code editors and build tools to identify this as a Hugo configuration file and project.

Configuration directory

In addition to using a single site configuration file, one can use the configDir directory (default to config/) to maintain easier organization and environment specific settings.

Each file represents a configuration root object, such as params.toml for [Params], menu(s).toml for [Menu], languages.toml for [Languages] etc…
Each file’s content must be top-level, for example:

hugo.

Params:
  foo: bar

[Params]
  foo = 'bar'

{
   "Params": {
      "foo": "bar"
   }
}

params.

foo: bar

foo = 'bar'

{
   "foo": "bar"
}

Each directory holds a group of files containing settings unique to an environment.
Files can be localized to become language specific.

├── config
│   ├── _default
│   │   ├── hugo.toml
│   │   ├── languages.toml
│   │   ├── menus.en.toml
│   │   ├── menus.zh.toml
│   │   └── params.toml
│   ├── production
│   │   ├── hugo.toml
│   │   └── params.toml
│   └── staging
│       ├── hugo.toml
│       └── params.toml

Considering the structure above, when running hugo --environment staging, Hugo will use every setting from config/_default and merge staging’s on top of those.

Let’s take an example to understand this better. Let’s say you are using Google Analytics for your website. This requires you to specify googleAnalytics = "G-XXXXXXXX" in hugo.toml. Now consider the following scenario:

You don’t want the Analytics code to be loaded in development i.e. in your localhost
You want to use separate googleAnalytics IDs for your production & staging environments (say):
- G-PPPPPPPP for production
- G-SSSSSSSS for staging

This is how you need to configure your hugo.toml files considering the above scenario:

In _default/hugo.toml you don’t need to mention googleAnalytics parameter at all. This ensures that no Google Analytics code is loaded in your development server i.e. when you run hugo server. This works since, by default Hugo sets Environment=development when you run hugo server which uses the configuration files from _default folder
In production/hugo.toml you just need to have one line:
googleAnalytics = "G-PPPPPPPP"
You don’t need to mention all other parameters like title, baseURL, theme etc. again in this configuration file. You need to mention only those parameters which are different or new for the production environment. This is due to the fact that Hugo is going to merge this on top of _default/hugo.toml. Now when you run hugo (build command), by default hugo sets Environment=production, so the G-PPPPPPPP analytics code will be there in your production website
Similarly in staging/hugo.toml you just need to have one line:
googleAnalytics = "G-SSSSSSSS"
Now you need to tell Hugo that you are using the staging environment. So your build command should be hugo --environment staging which will load the G-SSSSSSSS analytics code in your staging website

Merge configuration from themes

The configuration value for _merge can be one of:

none: No merge.
shallow: Only add values for new keys.
deep: Add values for new keys, merge existing.

Note that you don’t need to be so verbose as in the default setup below; a _merge value higher up will be inherited if not set.

hugo.

build:
  _merge: none
caches:
  _merge: none
cascade:
  _merge: none
deployment:
  _merge: none
frontmatter:
  _merge: none
imaging:
  _merge: none
languages:
  _merge: none
  en:
    _merge: none
    menus:
      _merge: shallow
    params:
      _merge: deep
markup:
  _merge: none
mediatypes:
  _merge: shallow
menus:
  _merge: shallow
minify:
  _merge: none
module:
  _merge: none
outputformats:
  _merge: shallow
outputs:
  _merge: none
params:
  _merge: deep
permalinks:
  _merge: none
privacy:
  _merge: none
related:
  _merge: none
security:
  _merge: none
server:
  _merge: none
services:
  _merge: none
sitemap:
  _merge: none
taxonomies:
  _merge: none

[build]
  _merge = 'none'
[caches]
  _merge = 'none'
[cascade]
  _merge = 'none'
[deployment]
  _merge = 'none'
[frontmatter]
  _merge = 'none'
[imaging]
  _merge = 'none'
[languages]
  _merge = 'none'
  [languages.en]
    _merge = 'none'
    [languages.en.menus]
      _merge = 'shallow'
    [languages.en.params]
      _merge = 'deep'
[markup]
  _merge = 'none'
[mediatypes]
  _merge = 'shallow'
[menus]
  _merge = 'shallow'
[minify]
  _merge = 'none'
[module]
  _merge = 'none'
[outputformats]
  _merge = 'shallow'
[outputs]
  _merge = 'none'
[params]
  _merge = 'deep'
[permalinks]
  _merge = 'none'
[privacy]
  _merge = 'none'
[related]
  _merge = 'none'
[security]
  _merge = 'none'
[server]
  _merge = 'none'
[services]
  _merge = 'none'
[sitemap]
  _merge = 'none'
[taxonomies]
  _merge = 'none'

{
   "build": {
      "_merge": "none"
   },
   "caches": {
      "_merge": "none"
   },
   "cascade": {
      "_merge": "none"
   },
   "deployment": {
      "_merge": "none"
   },
   "frontmatter": {
      "_merge": "none"
   },
   "imaging": {
      "_merge": "none"
   },
   "languages": {
      "_merge": "none",
      "en": {
         "_merge": "none",
         "menus": {
            "_merge": "shallow"
         },
         "params": {
            "_merge": "deep"
         }
      }
   },
   "markup": {
      "_merge": "none"
   },
   "mediatypes": {
      "_merge": "shallow"
   },
   "menus": {
      "_merge": "shallow"
   },
   "minify": {
      "_merge": "none"
   },
   "module": {
      "_merge": "none"
   },
   "outputformats": {
      "_merge": "shallow"
   },
   "outputs": {
      "_merge": "none"
   },
   "params": {
      "_merge": "deep"
   },
   "permalinks": {
      "_merge": "none"
   },
   "privacy": {
      "_merge": "none"
   },
   "related": {
      "_merge": "none"
   },
   "security": {
      "_merge": "none"
   },
   "server": {
      "_merge": "none"
   },
   "services": {
      "_merge": "none"
   },
   "sitemap": {
      "_merge": "none"
   },
   "taxonomies": {
      "_merge": "none"
   }
}

All configuration settings

The following is the full list of Hugo-defined variables. Users may choose to override those values in their site configuration file(s).

archetypeDir

Default value: “archetypes”

The directory where Hugo finds archetype files (content templates). Also see Module Mounts Config for an alternative way to configure this directory (from Hugo 0.56).

assetDir

Default value: “assets”

The directory where Hugo finds asset files used in Hugo Pipes. Also see Module Mounts Config for an alternative way to configure this directory (from Hugo 0.56).

baseURL

The absolute URL (protocol, host, path, and trailing slash) of your published site (e.g., https://www.example.org/docs/).

build

See Configure Build

buildDrafts (false)

Default value: false

Include drafts when building.

buildExpired

Default value: false

Include content already expired.

buildFuture

Default value: false

Include content with publishdate in the future.

caches

See Configure File Caches

cascade

Pass down default configuration values (front matter) to pages in the content tree. The options in site configuration is the same as in page front matter, see Front Matter Cascade.

canonifyURLs

Default value: false

Enable to turn relative URLs into absolute. See details.

cleanDestinationDir

Default value: false

When building, removes files from destination not found in static directories.

contentDir

Default value: “content”

The directory from where Hugo reads content files. Also see Module Mounts Config for an alternative way to configure this directory (from Hugo 0.56).

copyright

Default value: ""

dataDir

Default value: “data”

The directory from where Hugo reads data files. Also see Module Mounts Config for an alternative way to configure this directory (from Hugo 0.56).

defaultContentLanguage

Default value: “en”

Content without language indicator will default to this language.

defaultContentLanguageInSubdir

Default value: false

Render the default content language in subdir, e.g. content/en/. The site root / will then redirect to /en/.

disableAliases

Default value: false

Will disable generation of alias redirects. Note that even if disableAliases is set, the aliases themselves are preserved on the page. The motivation with this is to be able to generate 301 redirects in an .htaccess, a Netlify _redirects file or similar using a custom output format.

disableHugoGeneratorInject

Default value: false

Hugo will, by default, inject a generator meta tag in the HTML head on the home page only. You can turn it off, but we would really appreciate if you don’t, as this is a good way to watch Hugo’s popularity on the rise.

disableKinds

Default value: []

Enable disabling of all pages of the specified Kinds. Allowed values in this list: "page", "home", "section", "taxonomy", "term", "RSS", "sitemap", "robotsTXT", "404".

disableLiveReload

Default value: false

Disable automatic live reloading of browser window.

disablePathToLower

Default value: false

Do not convert the url/path to lowercase.

enableEmoji

Default value: false

Enable Emoji emoticons support for page content; see the Emoji Cheat Sheet.

enableGitInfo

Default value: false

Enable .GitInfo object for each page (if the Hugo site is versioned by Git). This will then update the Lastmod parameter for each page using the last git commit date for that content file.

enableInlineShortcodes

Default value: false

Enable inline shortcode support. See Inline Shortcodes.

enableMissingTranslationPlaceholders

Default value: false

Show a placeholder instead of the default value or an empty string if a translation is missing.

enableRobotsTXT

Default value: false

Enable generation of robots.txt file.

frontmatter

See Front matter Configuration.

googleAnalytics

Default value: ""

Google Analytics tracking ID.

hasCJKLanguage

Default value: false

If true, auto-detect Chinese/Japanese/Korean Languages in the content. This will make .Summary and .WordCount behave correctly for CJK languages.

imaging

See image processing configuration.

languageCode

Default value: ""

A language tag as defined by RFC 5646. This value is used to populate:

The <language> element in the internal RSS template
The lang attribute of the <html> element in the internal alias template

module

Module configuration see module configuration.

newContentEditor

Default value: ""

The editor to use when creating new content.

noChmod

Default value: false

Don’t sync permission mode of files.

noTimes

Default value: false

Don’t sync modification time of files.

outputFormats

See Configure Output Formats.

paginate

Default value: 10

Default number of elements per page in pagination.

paginatePath

Default value: “page”

The path element used during pagination (https://example.com/page/2).

permalinks

See Content Management.

pluralizeListTitles

Default value: true

Pluralize titles in lists.

publishDir

Default value: “public”

The directory to where Hugo will write the final static site (the HTML files etc.).

See Related Content.

relativeURLs

Default value: false

Enable this to make all relative URLs relative to content root. Note that this does not affect absolute URLs. See details.

refLinksErrorLevel

Default value: “ERROR”

When using ref or relref to resolve page links and a link cannot be resolved, it will be logged with this log level. Valid values are ERROR (default) or WARNING. Any ERROR will fail the build (exit -1).

refLinksNotFoundURL

URL to be used as a placeholder when a page reference cannot be found in ref or relref. Is used as-is.

removePathAccents

Default value: false

Removes non-spacing marks from composite characters in content paths.

content/post/hügó.md --> https://example.org/post/hugo/

rssLimit

Default value: -1 (unlimited)

Maximum number of items in the RSS feed.

sectionPagesMenu

See Menus.

security

See Security Policy

sitemap

Default sitemap configuration.

summaryLength

Default value: 70

The length of text in words to show in a .Summary.

taxonomies

See Configure Taxonomies.

theme

: See module configuration for how to import a theme.

themesDir

Default value: “themes”

The directory where Hugo reads the themes from.

timeout

Default value: “30s”

Timeout for generating page contents, specified as a duration or in seconds. Note: this is used to bail out of recursive content generation. You might need to raise this limit if your pages are slow to generate (e.g., because they require large image processing or depend on remote contents).

timeZone

The time zone (or location), e.g. Europe/Oslo, used to parse front matter dates without such information and in the time function. The list of valid values may be system dependent, but should include UTC, Local, and any location in the IANA Time Zone database.

title

Site title.

titleCaseStyle

Default value: “ap”

See Configure Title Case

uglyURLs

Default value: false

When enabled, creates URL of the form /filename.html instead of /filename/.

watch

Default value: false

Watch filesystem for changes and recreate as needed.

If you are developing your site on a *nix machine, here is a handy shortcut for finding a configuration option from the command line:

cd ~/sites/yourhugosite
hugo config | grep emoji

which shows output like

enableemoji: true

Configure build

The build configuration section contains global build-related configuration options.

hugo.

build:
  buildStats:
    disableClasses: false
    disableIDs: false
    disableTags: false
    enable: false
  cacheBusters:
  - source: assets/.*\.(js|ts|jsx|tsx)
    target: (js|scripts|javascript)
  - source: assets/.*\.(css|sass|scss)$
    target: (css|styles|scss|sass)
  - source: (postcss|tailwind)\.config\.js
    target: (css|styles|scss|sass)
  - source: assets/.*\.(.*)$
    target: $1
  noJSConfigInAssets: false
  useResourceCacheWhen: fallback

[build]
  noJSConfigInAssets = false
  useResourceCacheWhen = 'fallback'
  [build.buildStats]
    disableClasses = false
    disableIDs = false
    disableTags = false
    enable = false
[[build.cacheBusters]]
    source = 'assets/.*\.(js|ts|jsx|tsx)'
    target = '(js|scripts|javascript)'
[[build.cacheBusters]]
    source = 'assets/.*\.(css|sass|scss)$'
    target = '(css|styles|scss|sass)'
[[build.cacheBusters]]
    source = '(postcss|tailwind)\.config\.js'
    target = '(css|styles|scss|sass)'
[[build.cacheBusters]]
    source = 'assets/.*\.(.*)$'
    target = '$1'

{
   "build": {
      "buildStats": {
         "disableClasses": false,
         "disableIDs": false,
         "disableTags": false,
         "enable": false
      },
      "cacheBusters": [
         {
            "source": "assets/.*\\.(js|ts|jsx|tsx)",
            "target": "(js|scripts|javascript)"
         },
         {
            "source": "assets/.*\\.(css|sass|scss)$",
            "target": "(css|styles|scss|sass)"
         },
         {
            "source": "(postcss|tailwind)\\.config\\.js",
            "target": "(css|styles|scss|sass)"
         },
         {
            "source": "assets/.*\\.(.*)$",
            "target": "$1"
         }
      ],
      "noJSConfigInAssets": false,
      "useResourceCacheWhen": "fallback"
   }
}

buildStats: When enabled, creates a hugo_stats.json file in the root of your project. This file contains arrays of the class attributes, id attributes, and tags of every HTML element within your published site. Use this file as data source when removing unused CSS from your site. This process is also known as pruning, purging, or tree shaking.

Exclude class attributes, id attributes, or tags from hugo_stats.json with the disableClasses, disableIDs, and disableTags keys.

Due to the nature of partial server builds, new HTML entities are added while the server is running, but old values will not be removed until you restart the server or run a regular hugo build.

cachebusters: See Configure Cache Busters
noJSConfigInAssets: Turn off writing a jsconfig.json into your /assets folder with mapping of imports from running js.Build. This file is intended to help with intellisense/navigation inside code editors such as VS Code. Note that if you do not use js.Build, no file will be written.
useResourceCacheWhen: When to use the cached resources in /resources/_gen for PostCSS and ToCSS. Valid values are never, always and fallback. The last value means that the cache will be tried if PostCSS/extended version is not available.

Configure cache busters

The build.cachebusters configuration option was added to support development using Tailwind 3.x’s JIT compiler where a build configuration may look like this:

hugo.

build:
  buildStats:
    enable: true
  cachebusters:
  - source: assets/watching/hugo_stats\.json
    target: styles\.css
  - source: (postcss|tailwind)\.config\.js
    target: css
  - source: assets/.*\.(js|ts|jsx|tsx)
    target: js
  - source: assets/.*\.(.*)$
    target: $1

[build]
  [build.buildStats]
    enable = true
[[build.cachebusters]]
    source = 'assets/watching/hugo_stats\.json'
    target = 'styles\.css'
[[build.cachebusters]]
    source = '(postcss|tailwind)\.config\.js'
    target = 'css'
[[build.cachebusters]]
    source = 'assets/.*\.(js|ts|jsx|tsx)'
    target = 'js'
[[build.cachebusters]]
    source = 'assets/.*\.(.*)$'
    target = '$1'

{
   "build": {
      "buildStats": {
         "enable": true
      },
      "cachebusters": [
         {
            "source": "assets/watching/hugo_stats\\.json",
            "target": "styles\\.css"
         },
         {
            "source": "(postcss|tailwind)\\.config\\.js",
            "target": "css"
         },
         {
            "source": "assets/.*\\.(js|ts|jsx|tsx)",
            "target": "js"
         },
         {
            "source": "assets/.*\\.(.*)$",
            "target": "$1"
         }
      ]
   }
}

Some key points in the above are writeStats = true, which writes a hugo_stats.json file on each build with HTML classes etc. that’s used in the rendered output. Changes to this file will trigger a rebuild of the styles.css file. You also need to add hugo_stats.json to Hugo’s server watcher. See Hugo Starter Tailwind Basic for a running example.

source: A regexp matching file(s) relative to one of the virtual component directories in Hugo, typically assets/....
target: A regexp matching the keys in the resource cache that should be expired when source changes. You can use the matching regexp groups from source in the expression, e.g. $1.

Configure server

This is only relevant when running hugo server, and it allows to set HTTP headers during development, which allows you to test out your Content Security Policy and similar. The configuration format matches Netlify’s with slightly more powerful Glob matching:

hugo.

server:
  headers:
  - for: /**
    values:
      Content-Security-Policy: script-src localhost:1313
      Referrer-Policy: strict-origin-when-cross-origin
      X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff
      X-Frame-Options: DENY
      X-XSS-Protection: 1; mode=block

[server]
[[server.headers]]
    for = '/**'
    [server.headers.values]
      Content-Security-Policy = 'script-src localhost:1313'
      Referrer-Policy = 'strict-origin-when-cross-origin'
      X-Content-Type-Options = 'nosniff'
      X-Frame-Options = 'DENY'
      X-XSS-Protection = '1; mode=block'

{
   "server": {
      "headers": [
         {
            "for": "/**",
            "values": {
               "Content-Security-Policy": "script-src localhost:1313",
               "Referrer-Policy": "strict-origin-when-cross-origin",
               "X-Content-Type-Options": "nosniff",
               "X-Frame-Options": "DENY",
               "X-XSS-Protection": "1; mode=block"
            }
         }
      ]
   }
}

Since this is “development only”, it may make sense to put it below the development environment:

config/development/server.

headers:
- for: /**
  values:
    Content-Security-Policy: script-src localhost:1313
    Referrer-Policy: strict-origin-when-cross-origin
    X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff
    X-Frame-Options: DENY
    X-XSS-Protection: 1; mode=block

[[headers]]
  for = '/**'
  [headers.values]
    Content-Security-Policy = 'script-src localhost:1313'
    Referrer-Policy = 'strict-origin-when-cross-origin'
    X-Content-Type-Options = 'nosniff'
    X-Frame-Options = 'DENY'
    X-XSS-Protection = '1; mode=block'

{
   "headers": [
      {
         "for": "/**",
         "values": {
            "Content-Security-Policy": "script-src localhost:1313",
            "Referrer-Policy": "strict-origin-when-cross-origin",
            "X-Content-Type-Options": "nosniff",
            "X-Frame-Options": "DENY",
            "X-XSS-Protection": "1; mode=block"
         }
      }
   ]
}

You can also specify simple redirects rules for the server. The syntax is again similar to Netlify’s.

Note that a status code of 200 will trigger a URL rewrite, which is what you want in SPA situations, e.g:

config/development/server.

redirects:
- force: false
  from: /myspa/**
  status: 200
  to: /myspa/

[[redirects]]
  force = false
  from = '/myspa/**'
  status = 200
  to = '/myspa/'

{
   "redirects": [
      {
         "force": false,
         "from": "/myspa/**",
         "status": 200,
         "to": "/myspa/"
      }
   ]
}

Setting force=true will make a redirect even if there is existing content in the path. Note that before Hugo 0.76 force was the default behavior, but this is inline with how Netlify does it.

404 server error page

Hugo will, by default, render all 404 errors when running hugo server with the 404.html template. Note that if you have already added one or more redirects to your server configuration, you need to add the 404 redirect explicitly, e.g:

config/development/server.

redirects:
- from: /**
  status: 404
  to: /404.html

[[redirects]]
  from = '/**'
  status = 404
  to = '/404.html'

{
   "redirects": [
      {
         "from": "/**",
         "status": 404,
         "to": "/404.html"
      }
   ]
}

Configure title case

Set titleCaseStyle to specify the title style used by the title template function and the automatic section titles in Hugo.

Can be one of:

ap (default), the capitalization rules in the Associated Press (AP) Stylebook
chicago, the Chicago Manual of Style
go, Go’s convention of capitalizing every word.
firstupper, capitalize the first letter of the first word.
none, no capitalization.

Configuration environment variables

HUGO_NUMWORKERMULTIPLIER: Can be set to increase or reduce the number of workers used in parallel processing in Hugo. If not set, the number of logical CPUs will be used.

Configuration lookup order

Similar to the template lookup order, Hugo has a default set of rules for searching for a configuration file in the root of your website’s source directory as a default behavior:

./hugo.toml
./hugo.yaml
./hugo.json

In your configuration file, you can direct Hugo as to how you want your website rendered, control your website’s menus, and arbitrarily define site-wide parameters specific to your project.

Example configuration

The following is a typical example of a configuration file. The values nested under params: will populate the .Site.Params variable for use in templates:

hugo.

baseURL: https://yoursite.example.com/
params:
  AuthorName: Jon Doe
  GitHubUser: spf13
  ListOfFoo:
  - foo1
  - foo2
  SidebarRecentLimit: 5
  Subtitle: Hugo is Absurdly Fast!
permalinks:
  posts: /:year/:month/:title/
title: My Hugo Site

baseURL = 'https://yoursite.example.com/'
title = 'My Hugo Site'
[params]
  AuthorName = 'Jon Doe'
  GitHubUser = 'spf13'
  ListOfFoo = ['foo1', 'foo2']
  SidebarRecentLimit = 5
  Subtitle = 'Hugo is Absurdly Fast!'
[permalinks]
  posts = '/:year/:month/:title/'

{
   "baseURL": "https://yoursite.example.com/",
   "params": {
      "AuthorName": "Jon Doe",
      "GitHubUser": "spf13",
      "ListOfFoo": [
         "foo1",
         "foo2"
      ],
      "SidebarRecentLimit": 5,
      "Subtitle": "Hugo is Absurdly Fast!"
   },
   "permalinks": {
      "posts": "/:year/:month/:title/"
   },
   "title": "My Hugo Site"
}

Configure with environment variables

In addition to the 3 configuration options already mentioned, configuration key-values can be defined through operating system environment variables.

For example, the following command will effectively set a website’s title on Unix-like systems:

$ env HUGO_TITLE="Some Title" hugo

This is really useful if you use a service such as Netlify to deploy your site. Look at the Hugo docs Netlify configuration file for an example.

If you are using snake_cased variable names, the above will not work. Hugo determines the delimiter to use by the first character after HUGO. This allows you to define environment variables on the form HUGOxPARAMSxAPI_KEY=abcdefgh, using any allowed delimiter.

Ignore content and data files when rendering

Note: This works, but we recommend you use the newer and more powerful includeFiles and excludeFiles mount options.

To exclude specific files from the content, data, and i18n directories when rendering your site, set ignoreFiles to one or more regular expressions to match against the absolute file path.

To ignore files ending with .foo or .boo:

hugo.

ignoreFiles:
- \.foo$
- \.boo$

ignoreFiles = ['\.foo$', '\.boo$']

{
   "ignoreFiles": [
      "\\.foo$",
      "\\.boo$"
   ]
}

To ignore a file using the absolute file path:

hugo.

ignoreFiles:
- ^/home/user/project/content/test\.md$

ignoreFiles = ['^/home/user/project/content/test\.md$']

{
   "ignoreFiles": [
      "^/home/user/project/content/test\\.md$"
   ]
}

Configure front matter

Configure dates

Dates are important in Hugo, and you can configure how Hugo assigns dates to your content pages. You do this by adding a frontmatter section to your hugo.toml.

The default configuration is:

hugo.

frontmatter:
  date:
  - date
  - publishdate
  - pubdate
  - published
  - lastmod
  - modified
  expiryDate:
  - expirydate
  - unpublishdate
  lastmod:
  - :git
  - lastmod
  - modified
  - date
  - publishdate
  - pubdate
  - published
  publishDate:
  - publishdate
  - pubdate
  - published
  - date

[frontmatter]
  date = ['date', 'publishdate', 'pubdate', 'published', 'lastmod', 'modified']
  expiryDate = ['expirydate', 'unpublishdate']
  lastmod = [':git', 'lastmod', 'modified', 'date', 'publishdate', 'pubdate', 'published']
  publishDate = ['publishdate', 'pubdate', 'published', 'date']

{
   "frontmatter": {
      "date": [
         "date",
         "publishdate",
         "pubdate",
         "published",
         "lastmod",
         "modified"
      ],
      "expiryDate": [
         "expirydate",
         "unpublishdate"
      ],
      "lastmod": [
         ":git",
         "lastmod",
         "modified",
         "date",
         "publishdate",
         "pubdate",
         "published"
      ],
      "publishDate": [
         "publishdate",
         "pubdate",
         "published",
         "date"
      ]
   }
}

If you, as an example, have a non-standard date parameter in some of your content, you can override the setting for date:

hugo.

frontmatter:
  date:
  - myDate
  - :default

[frontmatter]
  date = ['myDate', ':default']

{
   "frontmatter": {
      "date": [
         "myDate",
         ":default"
      ]
   }
}

The :default is a shortcut to the default settings. The above will set .Date to the date value in myDate if present, if not we will look in date,publishDate, lastmod and pick the first valid date.

In the list to the right, values starting with “:” are date handlers with a special meaning (see below). The others are just names of date parameters (case insensitive) in your front matter configuration. Also note that Hugo have some built-in aliases to the above: lastmod => modified, publishDate => pubdate, published and expiryDate => unpublishdate. With that, as an example, using pubDate as a date in front matter, will, by default, be assigned to .PublishDate.

The special date handlers are:

:fileModTime: Fetches the date from the content file’s last modification timestamp.

An example:

hugo.

frontmatter:
  lastmod:
  - lastmod
  - :fileModTime
  - :default

[frontmatter]
  lastmod = ['lastmod', ':fileModTime', ':default']

{
   "frontmatter": {
      "lastmod": [
         "lastmod",
         ":fileModTime",
         ":default"
      ]
   }
}

The above will try first to extract the value for .Lastmod starting with the lastmod front matter parameter, then the content file’s modification timestamp. The last, :default should not be needed here, but Hugo will finally look for a valid date in :git, date and then publishDate.

:filename: Fetches the date from the content file’s file name. For example, 2018-02-22-mypage.md will extract the date 2018-02-22. Also, if slug is not set, mypage will be used as the value for .Slug.

An example:

hugo.

frontmatter:
  date:
  - :filename
  - :default

[frontmatter]
  date = [':filename', ':default']

{
   "frontmatter": {
      "date": [
         ":filename",
         ":default"
      ]
   }
}

The above will try first to extract the value for .Date from the file name, then it will look in front matter parameters date, publishDate and lastly lastmod.

:git: This is the Git author date for the last revision of this content file. This will only be set if --enableGitInfo is set or enableGitInfo = true is set in site configuration.

Configure additional output formats

Hugo v0.20 introduced the ability to render your content to multiple output formats (e.g., to JSON, AMP html, or CSV). See Output Formats for information on how to add these values to your Hugo project’s configuration file.

Configure minify

Default configuration:

hugo.

minify:
  disableCSS: false
  disableHTML: false
  disableJS: false
  disableJSON: false
  disableSVG: false
  disableXML: false
  minifyOutput: false
  tdewolff:
    css:
      keepCSS2: true
      precision: 0
    html:
      keepComments: false
      keepConditionalComments: true
      keepDefaultAttrVals: true
      keepDocumentTags: true
      keepEndTags: true
      keepQuotes: false
      keepWhitespace: false
    js:
      keepVarNames: false
      precision: 0
      version: 2022
    json:
      keepNumbers: false
      precision: 0
    svg:
      keepComments: false
      precision: 0
    xml:
      keepWhitespace: false

[minify]
  disableCSS = false
  disableHTML = false
  disableJS = false
  disableJSON = false
  disableSVG = false
  disableXML = false
  minifyOutput = false
  [minify.tdewolff]
    [minify.tdewolff.css]
      keepCSS2 = true
      precision = 0
    [minify.tdewolff.html]
      keepComments = false
      keepConditionalComments = true
      keepDefaultAttrVals = true
      keepDocumentTags = true
      keepEndTags = true
      keepQuotes = false
      keepWhitespace = false
    [minify.tdewolff.js]
      keepVarNames = false
      precision = 0
      version = 2022
    [minify.tdewolff.json]
      keepNumbers = false
      precision = 0
    [minify.tdewolff.svg]
      keepComments = false
      precision = 0
    [minify.tdewolff.xml]
      keepWhitespace = false

{
   "minify": {
      "disableCSS": false,
      "disableHTML": false,
      "disableJS": false,
      "disableJSON": false,
      "disableSVG": false,
      "disableXML": false,
      "minifyOutput": false,
      "tdewolff": {
         "css": {
            "keepCSS2": true,
            "precision": 0
         },
         "html": {
            "keepComments": false,
            "keepConditionalComments": true,
            "keepDefaultAttrVals": true,
            "keepDocumentTags": true,
            "keepEndTags": true,
            "keepQuotes": false,
            "keepWhitespace": false
         },
         "js": {
            "keepVarNames": false,
            "precision": 0,
            "version": 2022
         },
         "json": {
            "keepNumbers": false,
            "precision": 0
         },
         "svg": {
            "keepComments": false,
            "precision": 0
         },
         "xml": {
            "keepWhitespace": false
         }
      }
   }
}

Configure file caches

Since Hugo 0.52 you can configure more than just the cacheDir. This is the default configuration:

hugo.

caches:
  assets:
    dir: :resourceDir/_gen
    maxAge: -1
  getcsv:
    dir: :cacheDir/:project
    maxAge: -1
  getjson:
    dir: :cacheDir/:project
    maxAge: -1
  getresource:
    dir: :cacheDir/:project
    maxAge: -1
  images:
    dir: :resourceDir/_gen
    maxAge: -1
  modules:
    dir: :cacheDir/modules
    maxAge: -1

[caches]
  [caches.assets]
    dir = ':resourceDir/_gen'
    maxAge = -1
  [caches.getcsv]
    dir = ':cacheDir/:project'
    maxAge = -1
  [caches.getjson]
    dir = ':cacheDir/:project'
    maxAge = -1
  [caches.getresource]
    dir = ':cacheDir/:project'
    maxAge = -1
  [caches.images]
    dir = ':resourceDir/_gen'
    maxAge = -1
  [caches.modules]
    dir = ':cacheDir/modules'
    maxAge = -1

{
   "caches": {
      "assets": {
         "dir": ":resourceDir/_gen",
         "maxAge": -1
      },
      "getcsv": {
         "dir": ":cacheDir/:project",
         "maxAge": -1
      },
      "getjson": {
         "dir": ":cacheDir/:project",
         "maxAge": -1
      },
      "getresource": {
         "dir": ":cacheDir/:project",
         "maxAge": -1
      },
      "images": {
         "dir": ":resourceDir/_gen",
         "maxAge": -1
      },
      "modules": {
         "dir": ":cacheDir/modules",
         "maxAge": -1
      }
   }
}

You can override any of these cache settings in your own hugo.toml.

The keywords explained

:cacheDir: See Configure cacheDir.
:project: The base directory name of the current Hugo project. This means that, in its default setting, every project will have separated file caches, which means that when you do hugo --gc you will not touch files related to other Hugo projects running on the same PC.
:resourceDir: This is the value of the resourceDir configuration option.
maxAge: This is the duration before a cache entry will be evicted, -1 means forever and 0 effectively turns that particular cache off. Uses Go’s time.Duration, so valid values are "10s" (10 seconds), "10m" (10 minutes) and "10h" (10 hours).
dir: The absolute path to where the files for this cache will be stored. Allowed starting placeholders are :cacheDir and :resourceDir (see above).

Configuration format specs

Configure cacheDir

This is the directory where Hugo by default will store its file caches. See Configure File Caches.

This can be set using the cacheDir config option or via the OS env variable HUGO_CACHEDIR.

If this is not set, Hugo will use, in order of preference:

If running on Netlify: /opt/build/cache/hugo_cache/. This means that if you run your builds on Netlify, all caches configured with :cacheDir will be saved and restored on the next build. For other CI vendors, please read their documentation. For an CircleCI example, see this configuration.
In a hugo_cache directory below the OS user cache directory as defined by Go’s os.UserCacheDir. On Unix systems, this is $XDG_CACHE_HOME as specified by basedir-spec-latest if non-empty, else $HOME/.cache. On MacOS, this is $HOME/Library/Caches. On Windows, this is%LocalAppData%. On Plan 9, this is $home/lib/cache.
In a hugo_cache_$USER directory below the OS temp dir.

If you want to know the current value of cacheDir, you can run hugo config, e.g: hugo config | grep cachedir.

Configuration file

hugo.toml vs config.toml

Configuration directory

Merge configuration from themes

All configuration settings

archetypeDir

assetDir

baseURL

build

buildDrafts (false)

buildExpired

buildFuture

caches

cascade

canonifyURLs

cleanDestinationDir

contentDir

copyright

dataDir

defaultContentLanguage

defaultContentLanguageInSubdir

disableAliases

disableHugoGeneratorInject

disableKinds

disableLiveReload

disablePathToLower

enableEmoji

enableGitInfo

enableInlineShortcodes

enableMissingTranslationPlaceholders

enableRobotsTXT

frontmatter

googleAnalytics

hasCJKLanguage

imaging

languageCode

languages

disableLanguages

markup

mediaTypes

menus

minify

module

newContentEditor

noChmod

noTimes

outputFormats

paginate

paginatePath

permalinks

pluralizeListTitles

publishDir

related

relativeURLs

refLinksErrorLevel

refLinksNotFoundURL

removePathAccents

rssLimit

sectionPagesMenu

security

sitemap

summaryLength

taxonomies

theme

themesDir

timeout

timeZone

title

titleCaseStyle

uglyURLs

watch

Configure build

Configure cache busters

Configure server

404 server error page

Configure title case

Configuration environment variables

Configuration lookup order

Example configuration

Configure with environment variables