ref: 534ae9c57a902aea9ed6e62390dec11fa74b7122
dir: /content/en/getting-started/usage.md/
---
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/<CURRENT-THEME>/*`
* `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 `</body>` Tag"%}}
Hugo injects the LiveReload `<script>` before the closing `</body>` in your templates and will therefore not work if this tag is not present..
{{% /note %}}
### Disable LiveReload
LiveReload works by injecting JavaScript into the pages Hugo generates. The script creates a connection from the browser's web socket client to the Hugo web socket server.
LiveReload is awesome for development. However, some Hugo users may use `hugo server` in production to instantly display updated content. The following methods make it easy to disable LiveReload:
```
hugo server --watch=false
```
Or...
```
hugo server --disableLiveReload
```
The latter flag can be omitted by adding the following key-value to your `config.toml` or `config.yml` file, respectively:
```
disableLiveReload = true
```
```
disableLiveReload: true
```
## Deploy Your Website
After running `hugo server` for local web development, you need to do a final `hugo` run *without the `server` part of the command* to rebuild your site. You may then deploy your site by copying the `public/` directory to your production web server.
Since Hugo generates a static website, your site can be hosted *anywhere* using any web server. See [Hosting and Deployment][hosting] for methods for hosting and automating deployments contributed by the Hugo community.
{{% warning "Generated Files are **NOT** Removed on Site Build" %}}
Running `hugo` *does not* remove generated files before building. This means that you should delete your `public/` directory (or the publish directory you specified via flag or configuration file) before running the `hugo` command. If you do not remove these files, you run the risk of the wrong files (e.g., drafts or future posts) being left in the generated site.
{{% /warning %}}
[commands]: /commands/
[config]: /getting-started/configuration/
[dirs]: /getting-started/directory-structure/
[front matter]: /content-management/front-matter/
[hosting]: /hosting-and-deployment/
[install]: /getting-started/installing/