---
aliases:
- /doc/configuration/
date: 2013-07-01
linktitle: Configuration
menu:
main:
parent: getting started
next: /overview/source-directory
notoc: true
prev: /overview/usage
title: Configuring Hugo
weight: 40
---
The directory structure and templates provide the majority of the
configuration for a site. In fact, a config file isn't even needed for many
websites since the defaults follow commonly used patterns.
Hugo expects to find the config file in the root of the source directory and
will look there first for a `config.toml` file. If none is present, it will
then look for a `config.yaml` file, followed by a `config.json` file.
The config file is a site-wide config. The config file provides directions to
hugo on how to build the site as well as site-wide parameters and menus.
## Examples
The following is an example of a typical yaml config file:
---
baseurl: "http://yoursite.example.com/"
...
The following is an example of a toml config file with some of the default values. Values under `[params]` will populate the `.Site.Params` variable for use in templates:
contentdir = "content"
layoutdir = "layouts"
publishdir = "public"
builddrafts = false
baseurl = "http://yoursite.example.com/"
canonifyurls = true
[taxonomies]
category = "categories"
tag = "tags"
[params]
description = "Tesla's Awesome Hugo Site"
author = "Nikola Tesla"
Here is a yaml configuration file which sets a few more options
---
baseurl: "http://yoursite.example.com/"
title: "Yoyodyne Widget Blogging"
footnotereturnlinkcontents: "↩"
permalinks:
post: /:year/:month/:title/
params:
Subtitle: "Spinning the cogs in the widgets"
AuthorName: "John Doe"
GitHubUser: "spf13"
ListOfFoo:
- "foo1"
- "foo2"
SidebarRecentLimit: 5
...
## Configuration variables
Following is a list of Hugo-defined variables that you can configure and their current default values:
---
archetypedir: "archetype"
# hostname (and path) to the root eg. http://spf13.com/
baseURL: ""
# include content marked as draft
buildDrafts: false
# include content with publishdate in the future
buildFuture: false
# enable this to make all relative URLs relative to content root. Note that this does not affect absolute URLs.
relativeURLs: false
canonifyURLs: false
# config file (default is path/config.yaml|json|toml)
config: "config.toml"
contentdir: "content"
dataDir: "data"
defaultExtension: "html"
defaultLayout: "post"
# filesystem path to write files to
destination: ""
disableLiveReload: false
# Do not build RSS files
disableRSS: false
# Do not build Sitemap file
disableSitemap: false
# edit new content with this editor, if provided
editor: ""
footnoteAnchorPrefix: ""
footnoteReturnLinkContents: ""
languageCode: ""
layoutdir: "layouts"
# Enable Logging
log: false
# Log File path (if set, logging enabled automatically)
logFile: ""
# "yaml", "toml", "json"
metaDataFormat: "toml"
newContentEditor: ""
# Don't sync modification time of files
noTimes: false
paginate: 10
paginatePath: "page"
permalinks:
# Pluralize titles in lists using inflect
pluralizeListTitles: true
publishdir: "public"
# color-codes for highlighting derived from this style
pygmentsStyle: "monokai"
# true: use pygments-css or false: color-codes directly
pygmentsUseClasses: false
sitemap: ""
# filesystem path to read files relative from
source: ""
staticdir: "static"
# display memory and timing of different steps of the program
stepAnalysis: false
# theme to use (located in /themes/THEMENAME/)
theme: ""
title: ""
# if true, use /filename.html instead of /filename/
uglyURLs: false
# verbose output
verbose: false
# verbose logging
verboseLog: false
# watch filesystem for changes and recreate as needed
watch: false
---
## Ignore files on build
The following inside `config.toml` will ignore files ending with `.foo` and `.boo` when building with `hugo`.
```
ignoreFiles = [ "\\.foo$", "\\.boo$" ]
```
The above is is a list of Reqular Expressions, but note the escaping of the `\` to make TOML happy.
## Configure Blackfriday rendering
[Blackfriday](https://github.com/russross/blackfriday) is the [Markdown](http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/) rendering engine used in Hugo. The Blackfriday configuration in Hugo is mostly a set of sane defaults that should fit most use cases.
But Hugo does expose some options---as listed in the table below, matched with the corresponding flag in the Blackfriday source ([html.go](https://github.com/russross/blackfriday/blob/master/html.go) and [markdown.go](https://github.com/russross/blackfriday/blob/master/markdown.go)):
Flag | Default | Blackfriday flag |
angledQuotes |
false |
HTML_SMARTYPANTS_ANGLED_QUOTES |
Purpose: |
Enable smart angled double quotes (e.g. "Hugo" renders to «Hugo» instead of “Hugo”) |
fractions |
true |
HTML_SMARTYPANTS_FRACTIONS |
Purpose: |
Enable smart fractions
(e.g. 5/12 renders to 5⁄12 (<sup>5</sup>⁄<sub>12</sub> ))
Caveat: Even with fractions = false ,
Blackfriday would still convert 1/2, 1/4 and 3/4 to ½ (½ ),
¼ (¼ ) and ¾ (¾ ) respectively,
but only these three. |
plainIdAnchors |
false |
FootnoteAnchorPrefix and HeaderIDSuffix |
Purpose: |
If true , then header and footnote IDs are generated without the document ID (e.g. #my-header instead of #my-header:bec3ed8ba720b9073ab75abcf3ba5d97 ) |
extensions |
[] |
EXTENSION_* |
Purpose: |
Use non-default additional extensions (e.g. Add "hardLineBreak" to use EXTENSION_HARD_LINE_BREAK ) |
extensionsmask |
[] |
EXTENSION_* |
Purpose: |
Extensions in this option won't be loaded. (e.g. Add "autoHeaderIds" to disable EXTENSION_AUTO_HEADER_IDS ) |
**Note** that these flags must be grouped under the `blackfriday` key and can be set on **both site and page level**. If set on page, it will override the site setting. Example:
TOML | YAML |
[blackfriday]
angledQuotes = true
fractions = false
plainIdAnchors = true
extensions = ["hardLineBreak"]
|
blackfriday:
angledQuotes: true
fractions: false
plainIdAnchors: true
extensions:
- hardLineBreak
|
## Notes
Config changes are not reflected with [LiveReload](/extras/livereload/).
Please restart `hugo server --watch` whenever you make a config change.