Part 1: Static Hugo websites: Loading fast, building to last #

Are you looking for a website that is fast, flexible, fully automated, and fun to build? Part 1 of Hugo in Action gives you a static website that loads instantly across the planet and works with minimal operational overhead.

Chapter 1 introduces Hugo and the Jamstack, and provides an understanding of the unique approach to website development practiced by Hugo users.

Chapter 2 discusses setting up the build environment and deploying a functional website to production. We will also discuss how to keep tabs on its performance and to keep our maintenance work low.

Chapter 3 takes us deep into authoring with Markdown and YAML for content and metadata, respectively. We will use Markdown’s formatting capabilities and Hugo’s extensions to prepare our pages for presentation on the internet.

In chapter 4, we don the hat of the website editor. The content organization with Hugo is different than most other approaches for building websites, and there are solid reasons for that. Chapter 4 also shows how intuitive and maintenance friendly Hugo’s page bundles are.

In chapter 5, we shift gears and move into the developer role. The Go template language is powerful, and Hugo’s function library massively amplifies that power. We will see how we can use Hugo templates for everything—from extending Markdown to automating repetitive work for the content author.

In chapter 6, the development moves from a single web page to an entire section and also provides the ins and outs of sharing templates and content within a website.

In chapter 7, we become independent of the external theme we have used since chapter 2. Here we dive into the internals of Hugo’s model for web development. We write code enabling all the features we used as a content editor in chapter 4.

Finally, chapter 8 adds a new direction, where we go beyond a single website into sharing content, templates, and code across multiple websites. As you will see, Hugo Modules is a plugin system for everybody—from content authors to editors and from user interface to business logic developers.

At the end of part 1, you will have a fast and flexible website. You will also have experience using some of the best techniques to ensure it remains fast, without a heavy investment in operations.