Getting started

#Install

Use Hugo 0.166.0 extended and Git. This is the verified version, not a claimed minimum or range. In particular, native content-adapter APIs and the bundled KaTeX 0.18.4 CSS/fonts are version-sensitive. Building a site needs no Node, Python, package installer, sibling repository, credentials or remote rendering service.

Start a new site, initialize Git, and add the public theme:

hugo new site my-site --format toml
cd my-site
git init
git submodule add https://github.com/calfzhou/hugo-theme-sidera.git themes/sidera
git -C themes/sidera checkout --detach v1.0.0

Choose a published stable tag (v1.0.0 above) from the GitHub releases. A notes entry is not proof of publication. Commit .gitmodules and the exact theme gitlink in your site; a submodule is not a floating release. See release notes and upgrades. To clone an existing site, use git clone --recurse-submodules SITE_URL, or run git submodule update --init --recursive after cloning. A plain archive of a site repository does not include its submodule content.

#Configure a minimal site

Replace the generated hugo.toml with the following, changing title and baseURL to your own values before publishing:

baseURL = 'https://example.org/'
title = 'My notebook'
theme = 'sidera'
defaultContentLanguage = 'en'
locale = 'en-US'

[taxonomies]
_merge = 'shallow'
[permalinks.term]
_merge = 'shallow'
[markup.tableOfContents]
_merge = 'shallow'
[markup.goldmark.parser]
_merge = 'deep'
[markup.goldmark.parser.attribute]
_merge = 'shallow'
[markup.goldmark.extensions.passthrough]
_merge = 'deep'

[frontmatter]
date = ['date', 'publishDate', 'pubdate', 'published']
publishDate = ['publishDate', 'pubdate', 'published', 'date']
lastmod = ['lastmod', 'modified', 'publishDate', 'pubdate', 'published', 'date']

These narrow imports enable native taxonomies, safe term slugs, H1–H6 TOC, block attributes/standalone images and dollar-delimited math. Do not import all security or markup settings, or enable renderer.unsafe to silence a warning. The explicit date chains avoid inventing dates from filesystem time or build time. Time zone, article permalinks, pagination and deployment remain your site’s policies.

#Write your first page

Create content/notes/_index.md:

---
title: Notes
preset: notes
---
A notebook of useful observations.

Create content/notes/hello/index.md:

---
title: Hello, Sidera
date: 2026-01-01T09:00:00Z
tags: [learning]
---
## One useful idea

Keep the source simple and make the links meaningful.

The home page lists collections automatically. You do not need menus or author profiles to get a working site. An index.md bundle can keep images/code beside it. See sections and bundles before adding more structure.

hugo --panicOnWarning --printPathWarnings --printI18nWarnings
hugo server --bind 127.0.0.1 --port 1313 --disableFastRender

Choose a free port and stop your preview with Ctrl-C. Use a fresh destination for a release build so old pages/resources cannot survive from an earlier build. Comments are off by default. Remote content images and optional badges retain their own network behavior; the minimal site above needs neither.

Next: embed this manual, or consult the official Hugo quick start for engine basics.