**Archetypes** are content template files in the [archetypes directory] of your project that contain preconfigured [front matter] and possibly also a content disposition for your website's [content types]. These will be used when you run `hugo new`.
The `hugo new` uses the `content-section` to find the most suitable archetype template in your project. If your project does not contain any archetype files, it will also look in the theme.
{{<codefile="archetype-example.sh">}}
hugo new posts/my-first-post.md
{{</code>}}
The above will create a new content file in `content/posts/my-first-post.md` using the first archetype file found of these:
1.`archetypes/posts.md`
2.`archetypes/default.md`
3.`themes/my-theme/archetypes/posts.md`
4.`themes/my-theme/archetypes/default.md`
The last two list items are only applicable if you use a theme and it uses the `my-theme` theme name as an example.
## Create a New Archetype Template
A fictional example for the section `newsletter` and the archetype file `archetypes/newsletter.md`. Create a new file in `archetypes/newsletter.md` and open it in a text editor.
{{<codefile="archetypes/newsletter.md">}}
---
title: "{{ replace .Name "-" " " | title }}"
date: {{ .Date }}
draft: true
---
**Insert Lead paragraph here.**
## New Cool Posts
{{ range first 10 ( where .Site.RegularPages "Type" "cool" ) }}
* {{ .Title }}
{{ end }}
{{</code>}}
When you create a new newsletter with:
```bash
hugo new newsletter/the-latest-cool.stuff.md
```
It will create a new newsletter type of content file based on the archetype template.
**Note:** the site will only be built if the `.Site` is in use in the archetype file, and this can be time consuming for big sites.
The above _newsletter type archetype_ illustrates the possibilities: The full Hugo `.Site` and all of Hugo's template funcs can be used in the archetype file.
## Directory based archetypes
Since Hugo `0.49` you can use complete directories as archetype templates. Given this archetype directory:
```bash
archetypes
├── default.md
└── post-bundle
├── bio.md
├── images
│ └── featured.jpg
└── index.md
```
```bash
hugo new --kind post-bundle posts/my-post
```
Will create a new folder in `/content/posts/my-post` with the same set of files as in the `post-bundle` archetypes folder. All content files (`index.md` etc.) can contain template logic, and will receive the correct `.Site` for the content's language.