hugo/docs/content/overview/configuration.md

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/doc/configuration/	2013-07-01	Configuration	main parent getting started	/overview/source-directory	true	/overview/usage	Configuring Hugo	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:

contentdir = "content"
layoutdir = "layouts"
publishdir = "public"
builddrafts = false
baseurl = "http://yoursite.example.com/"
canonifyurls = true
[indexes]
   category = "categories"
   tag = "tags"

Here is a yaml configuration file which sets a few more options

---
baseurl: "http://yoursite.example.com/"
title: "Yoyodyne Widget Blogging"
permalinks:
  post: /:year/:month/:title/
params:
  Subtitle: "Spinning the cogs in the widgets"
  AuthorName: "John Doe"
  GitHubUser: "spf13"
  ListOfFoo:
    - "foo1"
    - "foo2"
  SidebarRecentLimit: 5
...

Notes

Config changes do not reflect with Live Reload

Please restart hugo server --watch whenever you make a config change.