hugo/content/content-management/front-matter.md

title	linktitle	description	date	publishdate	lastmod	categories	keywords	menu	weight	draft	aliases	toc
Front Matter		Hugo allows you to add front matter in yaml, toml, or json to your content files.	2017-01-09	2017-01-09	2017-02-24	content management	front matter yaml toml json metadata archetypes	docs parent weight content-management 30	30	false	/content/front-matter/	true

Front matter allows you to keep metadata attached to an instance of a content type---i.e., embedded inside a content file---and is one of the many features that gives Hugo its strength.

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Front Matter Formats

Hugo supports three formats for front matter, each with their own identifying tokens.

TOML

identified by opening and closing +++.

YAML

identified by opening and closing ---.

JSON

a single JSON object surrounded by '{' and '}', followed by a new line.

TOML Example

+++
title = "spf13-vim 3.0 release and new website"
description = "spf13-vim is a cross platform distribution of vim plugins and resources for Vim."
tags = [ ".vimrc", "plugins", "spf13-vim", "vim" ]
date = "2012-04-06"
categories = [
  "Development",
  "VIM"
]
slug = "spf13-vim-3-0-release-and-new-website"
+++

YAML Example

---
title: "spf13-vim 3.0 release and new website"
description: "spf13-vim is a cross platform distribution of vim plugins and resources for Vim."
tags: [ ".vimrc", "plugins", "spf13-vim", "vim" ]
lastmod: 2015-12-23
date: "2012-04-06"
categories:
  - "Development"
  - "VIM"
slug: "spf13-vim-3-0-release-and-new-website"
---

JSON Example

{
    "title": "spf13-vim 3.0 release and new website",
    "description": "spf13-vim is a cross platform distribution of vim plugins and resources for Vim.",
    "tags": [ ".vimrc", "plugins", "spf13-vim", "vim" ],
    "date": "2012-04-06",
    "categories": [
        "Development",
        "VIM"
    ],
    "slug": "spf13-vim-3-0-release-and-new-website"
}

Front Matter Variables

Predefined

There are a few predefined variables that Hugo is aware of. See Page Variables for how to call many of these predefined variables in your templates.

aliases

an array of one or more aliases (e.g., old published paths of renamed content) that will be created in the output directory structure . See Aliases for details.

date

the datetime at which the content was created; note this value is auto-populated according to Hugo's built-in archetype.

description

the description for the content.

draft

if true, the content will not be rendered unless the --buildDrafts flag is passed to the hugo command.

expiryDate

the datetime at which the content should no longer be published by Hugo; expired content will not be rendered unless the --buildExpired flag is passed to the hugo command.

isCJKLanguage

if true, Hugo will explicitly treat the content as a CJK language; both .Summary and .WordCount work properly in CJK languages.

keywords

the meta keywords for the content.

layout

the layout Hugo should select from the lookup order when rendering the content. If a type is not specified in the front matter, Hugo will look for the layout of the same name in the layout directory that corresponds with a content's section. See "Defining a Content Type"

lastmod

the datetime at which the content was last modified.

linkTitle

used for creating links to content; if set, Hugo defaults to using the linktitle before the title. Hugo can also order lists of content by linktitle.

markup

experimental; specify "rst" for reStructuredText (requiresrst2html) or "md" (default) for Markdown.

outputs

allows you to specify output formats specific to the content. See output formats.

publishDate

if in the future, content will not be rendered unless the --buildFuture flag is passed to hugo.

slug

appears as the tail of the output URL. A value specified in front matter will override the segment of the URL based on the filename.

taxonomies

these will use the field name of the plural form of the index; see the tags and categories in the above front matter examples.

title

the title for the content.

type

the type of the content; this value will be automatically derived from the directory (i.e., the section) if not specified in front matter.

url

the full path to the content from the web root. It makes no assumptions about the path of the content file. It also ignores any language prefixes of the multilingual feature.

weight

used for ordering your content in lists.

{{% note "Hugo's Default URL Destinations" %}} If neither slug nor url is present and permalinks are not configured otherwise in your site config file, Hugo will use the filename of your content to create the output URL. See Content Organization for an explanation of paths in Hugo and URL Management for ways to customize Hugo's default behaviors. {{% /note %}}

User-Defined

You can add fields to your front matter arbitrarily to meet your needs. These user-defined key-values are placed into a single .Params variable for use in your templates.

The following fields can be accessed via .Params.include_toc and .Params.show_comments, respectively. The Variables section provides more information on using Hugo's page- and site-level variables in your templates.

include_toc: true
show_comments: false

These two user-defined fields can then be accessed via .Params.include_toc and .Params.show_comments, respectively. The Variables section provides more information on using Hugo's page- and site-level variables in your templates.

Order Content Through Front Matter

You can assign content-specific weight in the front matter of your content. These values are especially useful for ordering in list views. You can use weight for ordering of content and the convention of <TAXONOMY>_weight for ordering content within a taxonomy. See Ordering and Grouping Hugo Lists to see how weight can be used to organize your content in list views.

Override Global Markdown Configuration

It's possible to set some options for Markdown rendering in a content's front matter as an override to the BlackFriday rendering options set in your project configuration.

Front Matter Format Specs

• TOML Spec
• YAML Spec
• JSON Spec