Overview
Each page in FortyTen can be customized with settings defined in the page’s front matter. This guide covers all available page-level configuration options.
Basic Page Settings
Title
The page title appears in the browser tab, as a heading on the page, and in search results:
---
title: "My Article Title"
---
Publication Date
Specifies when the page was published. Used for sorting and displaying publication dates:
---
date: 2024-01-15T10:00:00Z
---
Description
A short description displayed in list views and meta tags:
---
description: "A brief description of this page"
---
For pages without a custom description, FortyTen falls back to the page’s summary or the first 150 characters of content.
Images
Feature Image
Add a hero image to your page. The image will be displayed prominently on single post pages and as a thumbnail in list views:
---
image: "https://example.com/images/my-image.jpg"
---
Image Usage
- Single post pages — Displayed as a hero image at the top of the post
- List pages — Displayed as a thumbnail with a grayscale hover effect
- External URLs — Use full HTTPS URLs (e.g.,
https://example.com/image.jpg) - Local images — Place in
static/directory and reference with absolute paths (e.g.,/images/my-image.jpg) - Same folder images — You can also reference images in the same folder as the content file (e.g.,
my-image.jpg)
Content Organization
Tags
Organize pages with tags. Tags are used for categorization, related posts, and navigation:
---
tags: ["hugo", "web-development", "tutorial"]
---
Multiple pages with overlapping tags will appear in a “Related Posts” section automatically.
Draft
Mark a page as draft to exclude it from published builds:
---
draft: true
---
Use hugo server -D or hugo -D to include draft pages during development.
Search Settings
Custom Search Summary
Customize what appears in search results. By default, FortyTen uses the page’s automatic summary or the first 150 characters:
---
summary: "A custom summary that appears in search results"
---
This is useful for pages where you want a more specific preview text.
Hide from Search
Exclude a page from the search index entirely:
---
searchHidden: true
---
Useful for:
- Draft or unpublished content
- Private or sensitive pages
- Pages you don’t want indexed
- Redirect pages
Hugo Built-in Settings
FortyTen also supports these standard Hugo front matter settings:
Slug
Override the default URL slug for a page:
---
slug: "custom-url-slug"
---
Without a custom slug, Hugo derives the URL from the filename.
Aliases
Create redirect URLs to this page:
---
aliases:
- /old-page-url/
- /another-old-url/
---
Useful when restructuring or renaming pages.
Weight
Control the sort order when pages are grouped (e.g., in menus or lists):
---
weight: 1
---
Lower weights appear first. Pages without a weight are sorted by date.
Outputs
Customize which output formats this page generates:
---
outputs:
- html
- json
---
By default, pages generate HTML and RSS. This setting overrides those defaults for the specific page.
Complete Example
Here’s a comprehensive example with multiple settings:
---
title: "Getting Started with Hugo"
date: 2024-01-15T10:00:00Z
draft: false
description: "A beginner's guide to building static sites with Hugo"
summary: "Learn the basics of Hugo and create your first site in 10 minutes"
image: "https://example.com/images/hugo-intro.jpg"
tags: ["hugo", "tutorial", "static-site-generator"]
slug: "hugo-getting-started"
weight: 1
searchHidden: false
---
Best Practices
- Always include a title and date — These are essential for proper display and sorting
- Use meaningful descriptions — Helps with SEO and gives readers context
- Add images when possible — Images improve visual appeal and engagement
- Use tags consistently — Related posts work better with consistent tagging
- Keep summaries concise — Search result summaries should be 1-2 sentences