Directory structure

Each Hugo project is a directory, with subdirectories that contribute to content, structure, behavior, and presentation.

Project skeleton

Hugo generates a project skeleton when you create a new project. For example, this command:

hugo new project my-project

Creates this directory structure:

my-project/
├── archetypes/
│   └── default.md
├── assets/
├── content/
├── data/
├── i18n/
├── layouts/
├── static/
├── themes/
└── hugo.toml         <-- project configuration

Depending on requirements, you may wish to organize your project configuration into subdirectories:

my-project/
├── archetypes/
│   └── default.md
├── assets/
├── config/           <-- project configuration
│   └── _default/
│       └── hugo.toml
├── content/
├── data/
├── i18n/
├── layouts/
├── static/
└── themes/

When you build your project, Hugo creates a public directory, and typically a resources directory as well:

my-project/
├── archetypes/
│   └── default.md
├── assets/
├── config/       
│   └── _default/
│       └── hugo.toml
├── content/
├── data/
├── i18n/
├── layouts/
├── public/       <-- created when you build your project
├── resources/    <-- created when you build your project
├── static/
└── themes/

Directories

Each of the subdirectories contributes to content, structure, behavior, or presentation.

archetypes

The archetypes directory contains templates for new content. See details.

assets

The assets directory contains global resources typically passed through an asset pipeline. This includes resources such as images, CSS, Sass, JavaScript, and TypeScript. See details.

config

The config directory contains your project configuration, possibly split into multiple subdirectories and files. For projects with minimal configuration or projects that do not need to behave differently in different environments, a single configuration file named hugo.toml in the root of the project is sufficient. See details.

content

The content directory contains the markup files (typically Markdown) and page resources that comprise the content of your project. See details.

data

The data directory contains data files (JSON, TOML, YAML, or XML) that augment content, configuration, localization, and navigation. See details.

i18n

The i18n directory contains translation tables for multilingual projects. See details.

layouts

The layouts directory contains templates to transform content, data, and resources into a complete website. See details.

public

The public directory contains the published website, generated when you run the hugo build or hugo server commands. Hugo recreates this directory and its content as needed. See details.

resources

The resources directory contains cached output from Hugo’s asset pipelines, generated when you run the hugo build or hugo server commands. By default this cache directory includes CSS and images. Hugo recreates this directory and its content as needed.

static

The static directory contains files that will be copied to the public directory when you build your project. For example: favicon.ico, robots.txt, and files that verify website ownership. Before the introduction of page bundles and asset pipelines, the static directory was also used for images, CSS, and JavaScript.

themes

The themes directory contains one or more themes, each in its own subdirectory.

Union file system

Hugo creates a union file system, allowing you to mount two or more directories to the same location. For example, let’s say your home directory contains a Hugo project in one directory, and shared content in another:

home/
└── user/
    ├── my-project/            
    │   ├── content/
    │   │   ├── books/
    │   │   │   ├── _index.md
    │   │   │   ├── book-1.md
    │   │   │   └── book-2.md
    │   │   └── _index.md
    │   ├── themes/
    │   │   └── my-theme/
    │   └── hugo.toml
    └── shared-content/     
        └── films/
            ├── _index.md
            ├── film-1.md
            └── film-2.md

You can include the shared content using mounts. In your project configuration:

module:
  mounts:
  - source: content
    target: content
  - source: /home/user/shared-content
    target: content

[module]
  [[module.mounts]]
    source = 'content'
    target = 'content'
  [[module.mounts]]
    source = '/home/user/shared-content'
    target = 'content'

{
   "module": {
      "mounts": [
         {
            "source": "content",
            "target": "content"
         },
         {
            "source": "/home/user/shared-content",
            "target": "content"
         }
      ]
   }
}

After mounting, the union file system has this structure:

home/
└── user/
    └── my-project/
        ├── content/
        │   ├── books/
        │   │   ├── _index.md
        │   │   ├── book-1.md
        │   │   └── book-2.md
        │   ├── films/
        │   │   ├── _index.md
        │   │   ├── film-1.md
        │   │   └── film-2.md
        │   └── _index.md
        ├── themes/
        │   └── my-theme/
        └── hugo.toml

You can mount directories to archetypes, assets, content, data, i18n, layouts, and static. See details.

You can also mount directories from Git repositories using Hugo Modules. See details.

Theme skeleton

Hugo generates a functional theme skeleton when you create a new theme. For example, this command:

hugo new theme my-theme

Creates this directory structure (subdirectories not shown):

my-theme/
├── archetypes/
├── assets/
├── content/
├── data/
├── i18n/
├── layouts/
├── static/
└── hugo.toml

Using the union file system described above, Hugo mounts each of these directories to the corresponding location in the project. When two files have the same path, the file in the project directory takes precedence. This allows you, for example, to override a theme’s template by placing a copy in the same location within the project directory.

If you are simultaneously using components from two or more themes or modules, and there’s a path collision, the first mount takes precedence.