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. Separate multiple keywords with commas ,.
author Your name
language The language of your website. Use a 2-lettter 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
root The root directory of your website
permalink The permalink format of articles :year/:month/:day/:title/
permalink_defaults Default values of each segment in permalink
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/.

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? true
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
highlight Code block syntax highlight settings, powered by highlight.js
highlight.enable Enable syntax highlight true
highlight.auto_detect Enable auto-detection if no language is specified false
highlight.line_number Display line number true
highlight.tab_replace Replace tabs by n space(s); if the value is empty, tabs won’t be replaced ''

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 Category slugs
tag_map Tag slugs

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

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://yoursite.com/page/2

pagination_dir: 'awesome-page'
# http://yoursite.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

In the config file, set the include/exclude key to make hexo explicitly process or ignore certain files/folders. You can use glob expressions for path matching.

Setting Description
include Hexo by default ignores hidden files and folders (including files and folders with a name that start with an underscore, with an exception*), but setting this field will make Hexo process them.
exclude Hexo process will ignore files list under this field.

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.

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

include: and exclude: do not apply to the themes/ folder. Prepend an underscore to the files or folders name in that folder to exclude them.

  • 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.

Overriding Theme Config

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

Instead of forking a theme, and maintaining a custom branch with your settings, you can configure it from your site’s primary configuration file.

Example configuration:

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

Resulting in theme configuration:

{
bio: "My awesome bio",
logo: "a-cool-image.png"
}