--- title: Basic Usage linktitle: Basic Usage description: Hugo's CLI is fully featured but simple to use, even for those who have very limited experience working from the command line. date: 2017-02-01 publishdate: 2017-02-01 lastmod: 2017-02-01 categories: [getting started] keywords: [usage,livereload,command line,flags] menu: docs: parent: "getting-started" weight: 40 weight: 40 sections_weight: 40 draft: false aliases: [/overview/usage/,/extras/livereload/,/doc/usage/,/usage/] toc: true --- The following is a description of the most common commands you will use while developing your Hugo project. See the [Command Line Reference][commands] for a comprehensive view of Hugo's CLI. ## Test Installation Once you have [installed Hugo][install], make sure it is in your `PATH`. You can test that Hugo has been installed correctly via the `help` command: ``` hugo help ``` The output you see in your console should be similar to the following: ``` hugo is the main command, used to build your Hugo site. Hugo is a Fast and Flexible Static Site Generator built with love by spf13 and friends in Go. Complete documentation is available at https://gohugo.io/. Usage: hugo [flags] hugo [command] Available Commands: check Contains some verification checks config Print the site configuration convert Convert your content to different formats env Print Hugo version and environment info gen A collection of several useful generators. help Help about any command import Import your site from others. list Listing out various types of content new Create new content for your site server A high performance webserver version Print the version number of Hugo Flags: -b, --baseURL string hostname (and path) to the root, e.g. https://spf13.com/ -D, --buildDrafts include content marked as draft -E, --buildExpired include expired content -F, --buildFuture include content with publishdate in the future --cacheDir string filesystem path to cache directory. Defaults: $TMPDIR/hugo_cache/ --cleanDestinationDir remove files from destination not found in static directories --config string config file (default is path/config.yaml|json|toml) --configDir string config dir (default "config") -c, --contentDir string filesystem path to content directory --debug debug output -d, --destination string filesystem path to write files to --disableKinds strings disable different kind of pages (home, RSS etc.) --enableGitInfo add Git revision, date and author info to the pages -e, --environment string build environment --forceSyncStatic copy all files when static is changed. --gc enable to run some cleanup tasks (remove unused cache files) after the build -h, --help help for hugo --i18n-warnings print missing translations --ignoreCache ignores the cache directory -l, --layoutDir string filesystem path to layout directory --log enable Logging --logFile string log File path (if set, logging enabled automatically) --minify minify any supported output format (HTML, XML etc.) --noChmod don't sync permission mode of files --noTimes don't sync modification time of files --path-warnings print warnings on duplicate target paths etc. --quiet build in quiet mode --renderToMemory render to memory (only useful for benchmark testing) -s, --source string filesystem path to read files relative from --templateMetrics display metrics about template executions --templateMetricsHints calculate some improvement hints when combined with --templateMetrics -t, --theme strings themes to use (located in /themes/THEMENAME/) --themesDir string filesystem path to themes directory --trace file write trace to file (not useful in general) -v, --verbose verbose output --verboseLog verbose logging -w, --watch watch filesystem for changes and recreate as needed Use "hugo [command] --help" for more information about a command. ``` ## The `hugo` Command The most common usage is probably to run `hugo` with your current directory being the input directory. This generates your website to the `public/` directory by default, although you can customize the output directory in your [site configuration][config] by changing the `publishDir` field. The command `hugo` renders your site into `public/` dir and is ready to be deployed to your web server: ``` hugo 0 draft content 0 future content 99 pages created 0 paginator pages created 16 tags created 0 groups created in 90 ms ``` ## Draft, Future, and Expired Content Hugo allows you to set `draft`, `publishdate`, and even `expirydate` in your content's [front matter][]. By default, Hugo will not publish: 1. Content with a future `publishdate` value 2. Content with `draft: true` status 3. Content with a past `expirydate` value All three of these can be overridden during both local development *and* deployment by adding the following flags to `hugo` and `hugo server`, respectively, or by changing the boolean values assigned to the fields of the same name (without `--`) in your [configuration][config]: 1. `--buildFuture` 2. `--buildDrafts` 3. `--buildExpired` ## LiveReload Hugo comes with [LiveReload](https://github.com/livereload/livereload-js) built in. There are no additional packages to install. A common way to use Hugo while developing a site is to have Hugo run a server with the `hugo server` command and watch for changes: ``` hugo server 0 draft content 0 future content 99 pages created 0 paginator pages created 16 tags created 0 groups created in 120 ms Watching for changes in /Users/yourname/sites/yourhugosite/{data,content,layouts,static} Serving pages from /Users/yourname/sites/yourhugosite/public Web Server is available at http://localhost:1313/ Press Ctrl+C to stop ``` This will run a fully functioning web server while simultaneously watching your file system for additions, deletions, or changes within the following areas of your [project organization][dirs]: * `/static/*` * `/content/*` * `/data/*` * `/i18n/*` * `/layouts/*` * `/themes//*` * `config` Whenever you make changes, Hugo will simultaneously rebuild the site and continue to serve content. As soon as the build is finished, LiveReload tells the browser to silently reload the page. Most Hugo builds are so fast that you may not notice the change unless looking directly at the site in your browser. This means that keeping the site open on a second monitor (or another half of your current monitor) allows you to see the most up-to-date version of your website without the need to leave your text editor. {{% note "Closing `` Tag"%}} Hugo injects the LiveReload `