Lowkey Hugo

This blog runs on Hugo and the Lowkey theme. After a few years of using it, these are the habits that saved me the most time.

1. Preview drafts while you write

New posts start as drafts, which Hugo leaves out of the site. Add -D to see them locally:

hugo server -D

2. Keep images next to the post

Give a post its own folder and put its images inside. Moving or renaming the post never breaks the images again:

content/posts/my-trip/
├── index.md
└── beach.jpg

3. Let Hugo check your links

Linking to another page with relref makes the build fail if that page does not exist, so broken links never reach your readers:

[Read the installation guide]({{< relref "/docs/getting-started/installation" >}})

4. Write a description for every post

The description in the front matter shows up in post lists, in search results and in link previews. One good sentence does more for your site than any SEO plugin.

description: "Small Hugo habits that make writing and maintaining a static site much more pleasant."

5. Override instead of editing the theme

Never edit files inside themes/. Copy the template you want to change into your own layouts/ folder instead. Your version wins, and the theme can still be updated safely.