hugoDocs/content/getting-started/directory-structure.md

title	linktitle	description	date	publishdate	lastmod	categories	tags	weight	draft	wip	aliases	toc
Directory Structure	Directory Structure	Hugo's CLI scaffolds a project's directory structure nearly instantly and then takes that single directory and uses it as the input for creating a complete website.	2017-01-02	2017-01-02	2017-01-02	project organization	source organization directories fundamentals	50	false	true	/overview/source-directory/	true

Hugo takes a single directory and uses it as the input for creating a complete website.

Directory Scaffolding in New Hugo Sites

The top level of a source directory will typically have the following elements:

▸ archetypes/
▸ content/
▸ data/
▸ i18n/
▸ layouts/
▸ static/
▸ themes/
  config.toml

Learn more about the different directories and what their purpose is:

• config
• data
• i18n
• archetypes
• content
• layouts
• static
• themes

Example Hugo Project Directory

An example directory may look like the following

.
├── config.toml
├── archetypes
|   └── default.md
├── content
|   ├── post
|   |   ├── firstpost.md
|   |   └── secondpost.md
|   └── quote
|   |   ├── first.md
|   |   └── second.md
├── data
├── i18n
├── layouts
|   ├── _default
|   |   ├── single.html
|   |   └── list.html
|   ├── partials
|   |   ├── header.html
|   |   └── footer.html
|   ├── taxonomies
|   |   ├── category.html
|   |   ├── post.html
|   |   ├── quote.html
|   |   └── tag.html
|   ├── post
|   |   ├── li.html
|   |   ├── single.html
|   |   └── summary.html
|   ├── quote
|   |   ├── li.html
|   |   ├── single.html
|   |   └── summary.html
|   ├── shortcodes
|   |   ├── img.html
|   |   ├── vimeo.html
|   |   └── youtube.html
|   ├── index.html
|   └── sitemap.xml
├── themes
|   ├── hyde
|   └── doc
└── static
    ├── css
    ├── images
    └── js

This directory structure tells us a lot about this website:

1. The website intends to have two different types of content: posts and quotes.
2. It will also apply two different taxonomies to that content: categories and tags.
3. It will be displaying content in 3 different views: a list, a summary, and a full-page view.

Content for Homepage and Other List Pages

Since Hugo 0.18, "everything" is a Page that can have content and metadata, like .Params, attached to it -- and share the same set of page variables.

To add content and front matter to the home page, a section, a taxonomy or a taxonomy terms listing, add a markdown file with the base name _index on the relevant place on the file system.

For the default Markdown content, the filename will be _index.md.

Se the example directory tree below.

{{% note "You Don't Have to Create _index.md"%}} You don't have to create an _index file for every list page (i.e. section, taxonomy, taxonomy terms, etc). If Hugo does not find an _index.md on a list page, a default page will be created if not present but with no {{.Content}} and only the default values for .Title etc. {{% /note %}}

└── content
    ├── _index.md
    ├── categories
    │   ├── _index.md
    │   └── photo
    │       └── _index.md
    ├── post
    │   ├── _index.md
    │   └── firstpost.md
    └── tags
        ├── _index.md
        └── hugo
            └── _index.md

• archetypes: You can create new content files in Hugo using the hugo new command. When you run that command, it adds few configuration properties to the post like date and title. [Archetype][archetypes] allows you to define your own configuration properties that will be added to front matter of new content files whenever hugo new command is used.

• config.toml: Every website should have a configuration file at the root. By default, the configuration file uses TOML format but you can also use YAML or JSON formats as well. TOML is minimal configuration file format that's easy to read due to obvious semantics. The configuration settings mentioned in the config.toml are applied to the full site. These configuration settings include baseURL and title of the website.

• content: This is where you will store content of the website. Inside content, you will create sub-directories for different sections. Let's suppose your website has three actions -- blog, article, and tutorial then you will have three different directories for each of them inside the content directory. The name of the section i.e. blog, article, or tutorial will be used by Hugo to apply a specific layout applicable to that section.

• data: This directory is used to store configuration files that can be used by Hugo when generating your website. You can write these files in YAML, JSON, or TOML format.

• layouts: The content inside this directory is used to specify how your content will be converted into the static website.

• static: This directory is used to store all the static content that your website will need like images, CSS, JavaScript or other static content.