Development

Introduction

You can contribute to the Hugo project by:

• Answering questions on the forum
• Improving the documentation
• Monitoring the issue queue
• Creating or improving themes
• Squashing bugs

Please submit documentation issues and pull requests to the documentation repository.

If you have an idea for an enhancement or new feature, create a new topic on the forum in the “Feature” category. This will help you to:

• Determine if the capability already exists
• Measure interest
• Refine the concept

If there is sufficient interest, create a proposal. Do not submit a pull request until the project lead accepts the proposal.

For a complete guide to contributing to Hugo, see the Contribution Guide.

Prerequisites

To build Hugo from source you must install:

1. Install Git
2. Install Go version 1.25.0 or later

GitHub workflow

Use this workflow to create and submit pull requests.

Step 1

Fork the project repository.

Step 2

Clone your fork.

Step 3

Create a new branch with a descriptive name that includes the corresponding issue number.

For a new feature:

git checkout -b feat/implement-some-feature-99999

For a bug fix:

git checkout -b fix/fix-some-bug-99999

Step 4

Make changes.

Step 5

Build and install.

To build and install the standard edition:

CGO_ENABLED=0 go install

New in v0.159.2 To build and install the deploy edition:

CGO_ENABLED=0 go install -tags withdeploy

To build and install the extended edition, first install a C compiler such as GCC or Clang and then run the following command:

Deprecated in v0.161.0 Build the standard edition instead.

CGO_ENABLED=1 go install -tags extended

To build and install the extended/deploy edition, first install a C compiler such as GCC or Clang and then run the following command:

Deprecated in v0.161.0 Build the deploy edition instead.

CGO_ENABLED=1 go install -tags extended,withdeploy

Step 6

Test your changes:

go test ./...

Step 7

Commit your changes with a descriptive commit message:

• Provide a summary on the first line, typically 50 characters or less, followed by a blank line.
  • Begin the summary with the name of the package, followed by a colon, a space, and a brief description of the change beginning with a capital letter
  • Use imperative present tense
  • See the commit message guidelines for requirements
• Optionally, provide a detailed description where each line is 72 characters or less, followed by a blank line.
• Add one or more “Fixes” or “Closes” keywords, each on its own line, referencing the issues addressed by this change.

For example:

git commit -m "tpl/strings: Create wrap function

The strings.Wrap function wraps a string into one or more lines,
splitting the string after the given number of characters, but not
splitting in the middle of a word.

Fixes #99998
Closes #99999"

Step 8

Push the new branch to your fork of the documentation repository.

Step 9

Visit the project repository and create a pull request (PR).

Step 10

A project maintainer will review your PR and may request changes. You may delete your branch after the maintainer merges your PR.