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    • New Site Scaffolding
    • Directory Structure Explained
GETTING STARTED FUNDAMENTALS

Directory Structure

Hugo’s CLI scaffolds a project directory structure and then takes that single directory and uses it as the input to create a complete website.

New Site Scaffolding

Running the hugo new site generator from the command line will create a directory structure with the following elements:

.
├── archetypes
├── config.toml
├── content
├── data
├── layouts
├── static
└── themes

Directory Structure Explained

The following is a high-level overview of each of the directories with links to each of their respective sections with in the Hugo docs.

archetypes
You can create new content files in Hugo using the hugo new command. By default, hugo will create new content files with at least date, title (inferred from the file name), and draft = true. This saves time and promotes consistency for sites using multiple content types. You can create your own archetypes with custom preconfigured front matter fields as well.
config.toml
Every Hugo project should have a configuration file in TOML, YAML, or JSON format at the root. Many sites may need little to no configuration, but Hugo ships with a large number of configuration directives for more granular directions on how you want Hugo to build your website.
content
All content for your website will live inside this directory. Each top-level folder in Hugo is considered a content section. For example, if your site has three main sections—blog, articles, and tutorials—you will have three directories at content/blog, content/articles, and content/tutorials. Hugo uses sections to assign default content types.
data
This directory is used to store configuration files that can be used by Hugo when generating your website. You can write these files in YAML, JSON, or TOML format. In addition to the files you add to this folder, you can also create data templates that pull from dynamic content.
layouts
Stores templates in the form of .html files that specify how views of your content will be rendered into a static website. Templates include list pages, your homepage, taxonomy templates, partials, single page templates, and more.
static
stores all the static content for your future website: images, CSS, JavaScript, etc. When Hugo builds your site, all assets inside your static directory are copied over as-is. A good example of using the static folder is for verifying site ownership on Google Search Console, where you want Hugo to copy over a complete HTML file without modifying its content.

Hugo does not currently ship with an asset pipeline (#3207). You can solicit support from the community in the Hugo forums or check out a few of the Hugo starter kits for examples of how Hugo developers are managing static assets.

See Also

  • Customize a Theme
  • Create a Theme
  • Install and Use Themes
  • Local File Templates
  • Content Organization
  • About Hugo
    • Overview
    • Hugo Features
    • The Benefits of Static
    • Roadmap
    • License
  • Getting Started
    • Get Started Overview
    • Quick Start
    • Install Hugo
    • Basic Usage
    • Directory Structure
    • Configuration
  • Themes
    • Themes Overview
    • Install and Use Themes
    • Customize a Theme
    • Create a Theme
  • Content Management
    • Content Management Overview
    • Organization
    • Supported Content Formats
    • Front Matter
    • Shortcodes
    • Related Content
    • Sections
    • Types
    • Archetypes
    • Taxonomies
    • Summaries
    • Links and Cross References
    • URL Management
    • Menus
    • Table of Contents
    • Comments
    • Multilingual and i18n
    • Syntax Highlighting
  • Templates
    • Templates Overview
    • Introduction
    • Template Lookup Order
    • Custom Output Formats
    • Base Templates and Blocks
    • List Page Templates
    • Homepage Template
    • Section Templates
    • Taxonomy Templates
    • Single Page Templates
    • Content View Templates
    • Data Templates
    • Partial Templates
    • Shortcode Templates
    • Local File Templates
    • 404 Page
    • Menu Templates
    • Pagination
    • RSS Templates
    • Sitemap Template
    • Robots.txt
    • Internal Templates
    • Alternative Templating
    • Template Debugging
  • Functions
    • Functions Quick Reference
    • .AddDate
    • .Format
    • .Get
    • .GetPage
    • .Param
    • .Scratch
    • .Unix
    • Math
    • absLangURL
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    • after
    • apply
    • base64
    • chomp
    • countrunes
    • countwords
    • dateFormat
    • default
    • delimit
    • dict
    • echoParam
    • emojify
    • eq
    • findRE
    • first
    • ge
    • getenv
    • gt
    • hasPrefix
    • highlight
    • htmlEscape
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    • humanize
    • i18n
    • imageConfig
    • in
    • index
    • int
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    • isset
    • jsonify
    • lang.NumFmt
    • last
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    • markdownify
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    • ne
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    • partialCached
    • plainify
    • pluralize
    • print
    • printf
    • println
    • querify
    • range
    • readDir
    • readFile
    • ref
    • relLangURL
    • relURL
    • relref
    • render
    • replace
    • replaceRE
    • safeCSS
    • safeHTML
    • safeHTMLAttr
    • safeJS
    • safeURL
    • seq
    • sha
    • shuffle
    • singularize
    • slice
    • slicestr
    • sort
    • split
    • string
    • strings.TrimLeft
    • strings.TrimPrefix
    • strings.TrimRight
    • strings.TrimSuffix
    • substr
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    • union
    • uniq
    • upper
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    • urls.Parse
    • where
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  • Variables
    • Variables Overview
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“Directory Structure” was last updated: October 13, 2017: Initial commit (a48229f)
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