Configuration

You can modify site settings in _config.yml or in an alternate config file.

Site

Setting Description
title The title of your website
subtitle The subtitle of your website
description The description of your website
keywords The keywords of your website. Supports multiple values.
author Your name
language The language of your website. Use a 2-letter ISO-639-1 code or optionally its variant. Default is en.
timezone The timezone of your website. Hexo uses the setting on your computer by default. You can find the list of available timezones here. Some examples are America/New_York, Japan, and UTC.

URL

Setting Description Default
url The URL of your website, must start with http:// or https://
root The root directory of your website url's pathname
permalink The permalink format of articles :year/:month/:day/:title/
permalink_defaults Default values of each segment in permalink
pretty_urls Rewrite the permalink variables to pretty URLs
pretty_urls.trailing_index Trailing index.html, set to false to remove it true
pretty_urls.trailing_html Trailing .html, set to false to remove it (does not apply to trailing index.html) true
Website in subdirectory

If your website is in a subdirectory (such as http://example.org/blog) set url to http://example.org/blog and set root to /blog/.

Examples:

# e.g. page.permalink is http://example.com/foo/bar/index.html
pretty_urls:
trailing_index: false
# becomes http://example.com/foo/bar/

Directory

Setting Description Default
source_dir Source folder. Where your content is stored source
public_dir Public folder. Where the static site will be generated public
tag_dir Tag directory tags
archive_dir Archive directory archives
category_dir Category directory categories
code_dir Include code directory (subdirectory of source_dir) downloads/code
i18n_dir i18n directory :lang
skip_render Paths that will be copied to public raw, without being rendered. You can use glob expressions for path matching.

Examples:

skip_render: "mypage/**/*"
# will output `source/mypage/index.html` and `source/mypage/code.js` without altering them.

## This also can be used to exclude posts,
skip_render: "_posts/test-post.md"
# will ignore the `source/_posts/test-post.md`.

Writing

Setting Description Default
new_post_name The filename format for new posts :title.md
default_layout Default layout post
titlecase Transform titles into title case? false
external_link Open external links in a new tab?
external_link.enable Open external links in a new tab? true
external_link.field Applies to the whole site or post only site
external_link.exclude Exclude hostname. Specify subdomain when applicable, including www []
filename_case Transform filenames to 1 lower case; 2 upper case 0
render_drafts Display drafts? false
post_asset_folder Enable the Asset Folder? false
relative_link Make links relative to the root folder? false
future Display future posts? true
syntax_highlighter Code block syntax highlight settings, see Syntax Highlight section for usage guide highlight.js
highlight Code block syntax highlight settings, see Highlight.js section for usage guide
prismjs Code block syntax highlight settings, see PrismJS section for usage guide

Home page setting

Setting Description Default
index_generator Generate an archive of posts, powered by hexo-generator-index
index_generator.path Root path for your blog’s index page ''
index_generator.per_page Posts displayed per page. 10
index_generator.order_by Posts order. Order by descending date (new to old) by default. -date
index_generator.pagination_dir URL format, see Pagination setting below page

Category & Tag

Setting Description Default
default_category Default category uncategorized
category_map Override category slugs
tag_map Override tag slugs

Examples:

category_map:
"yesterday's thoughts": yesterdays-thoughts
"C++": c-plus-plus

Date / Time format

Hexo uses Moment.js to process dates.

Setting Description Default
date_format Date format YYYY-MM-DD
time_format Time format HH:mm:ss
updated_option The updated value to used when not provided in the front-matter mtime
updated_option

updated_option controls the updated value when not provided in the front-matter:

  • mtime: Use file modification date as updated. It has been the default behaviour of Hexo since 3.0.0
  • date: Use date as updated. Typically used with Git workflow when file modification date could be different.
  • empty: Simply drop updated when not provided. May not be compatible with most themes and plugins.

use_date_for_updated is removed in v7.0.0+. Please use updated_option: 'date' instead.

Pagination

Setting Description Default
per_page Number of posts displayed on each page. 0 disables pagination 10
pagination_dir URL format page

Examples:

pagination_dir: 'page'
# http://example.com/page/2

pagination_dir: 'awesome-page'
# http://example.com/awesome-page/2

Extensions

Setting Description
theme Theme name. false disables theming
theme_config Theme configuration. Include any custom theme settings under this key to override theme defaults.
deploy Deployment settings
meta_generator Meta generator tag. false disables injection of the tag.

Include/Exclude Files or Folders

Use the following options to explicitly process or ignore certain files/folders. Support glob expressions for path matching.

include and exclude options only apply to the source/ folder, whereas ignore option applies to all folders.

Setting Description
include Include hidden files (including files/folders with a name that starts with an underscore, with an exception*)
exclude Exclude files/folders
ignore Ignore files/folders

Examples:

# Include/Exclude Files/Folders
include:
- ".nojekyll"
# Include 'source/css/_typing.css'.
- "css/_typing.css"
# Include any file in 'source/_css/'.
- "_css/*"
# Include any file and subfolder in 'source/_css/'.
- "_css/**/*"

exclude:
# Exclude 'source/js/test.js'.
- "js/test.js"
# Exclude any file in 'source/js/'.
- "js/*"
# Exclude any file and subfolder in 'source/js/'.
- "js/**/*"
# Exclude any file with filename that starts with 'test' in 'source/js/'.
- "js/test*"
# Exclude any file with filename that starts with 'test' in 'source/js/' and its subfolders.
- "js/**/test*"
# Do not use this to exclude posts in the 'source/_posts/'.
# Use skip_render for that. Or prepend an underscore to the filename.
# - "_posts/hello-world.md" # Does not work.

ignore:
# Ignore any folder named 'foo'.
- "**/foo"
# Ignore 'foo' folder in 'themes/' only.
- "**/themes/*/foo"
# Same as above, but applies to every subfolders of 'themes/'.
- "**/themes/**/foo"

Each value in the list must be enclosed with single/double quotes.

include: and exclude: do not apply to the themes/ folder. Either use ignore: or alternatively, prepend an underscore to the file/folder name to exclude.

* Notable exception is the source/_posts folder, but any file or folder with a name that starts with an underscore under that folder would still be ignored. Using include: rule in that folder is not recommended.

Using an Alternate Config

A custom config file path can be specified by adding the --config flag to your hexo commands with a path to an alternate YAML or JSON config file, or a comma-separated list (no spaces) of multiple YAML or JSON files.

# use 'custom.yml' in place of '_config.yml'
$ hexo server --config custom.yml

# use 'custom.yml' & 'custom2.json', prioritizing 'custom2.json'
$ hexo server --config custom.yml,custom2.json

Using multiple files combines all the config files and saves the merged settings to _multiconfig.yml. The later values take precedence. It works with any number of JSON and YAML files with arbitrarily deep objects. Note that no spaces are allowed in the list.

For instance, in the above example if foo: bar is in custom.yml, but "foo": "dinosaur" is in custom2.json, _multiconfig.yml will contain foo: dinosaur.

Alternate Theme Config

Hexo themes are independent projects, with separate _config.yml files.

Instead of forking a theme, and maintaining a custom version with your settings, you can configure it from somewhere else:

from theme_config in site’s primary configuration file

Supported since Hexo 2.8.2

# _config.yml
theme: "my-theme"
theme_config:
bio: "My awesome bio"
foo:
bar: "a"
# themes/my-theme/_config.yml
bio: "Some generic bio"
logo: "a-cool-image.png"
foo:
baz: 'b'

Resulting in theme configuration:

{
"bio": "My awesome bio",
"logo": "a-cool-image.png",
"foo": {
"bar": "a",
"baz": "b"
}
}

from a dedicated _config.[theme].yml file

Supported since Hexo 5.0.0

The file should be placed in your site folder, both yml and json are supported. theme inside _config.yml must be configured for Hexo to read _config.[theme].yml

# _config.yml
theme: "my-theme"
# _config.my-theme.yml
bio: "My awesome bio"
foo:
bar: "a"
# themes/my-theme/_config.yml
bio: "Some generic bio"
logo: "a-cool-image.png"
foo:
baz: 'b'

Resulting in theme configuration:

{
"bio": "My awesome bio",
"logo": "a-cool-image.png",
"foo": {
"bar": "a",
"baz": "b"
}
}

We strongly recommend that you store your theme configuration in one place. But in case you have to store your theme configuration separately, you need to know the priority of those configurations: The theme_config inside site’s primary configuration file has the highest priority during merging, then the dedicated theme configuration file.
The _config.yml file under the theme directory has the lowest priority.