Home page templates

Introduction

A home page template is used to render your site’s home page, and is the only template required for a single-page website. For example, the home page template below inherits the site’s shell from the base template and renders the home page content, such as a list of other pages.

{{ define "main" }}
  {{ .Content }}
  {{ range site.RegularPages }}
    <h2><a href="{{ .RelPermalink }}">{{ .LinkTitle }}</a></h2>
  {{ end }}
{{ end }}

Lookup order

Hugo’s template lookup order determines the template path, allowing you to create unique templates for any page.

Content and front matter

The home page template uses content and front matter from an _index.md file located in the root of your content directory.

---
date: "2025-01-30T03:36:57-08:00"
draft: false
params:
  subtitle: The Subtitle
title: The Home Page
---

+++
date = '2025-01-30T03:36:57-08:00'
draft = false
title = 'The Home Page'
[params]
  subtitle = 'The Subtitle'
+++

{
   "date": "2025-01-30T03:36:57-08:00",
   "draft": false,
   "params": {
      "subtitle": "The Subtitle"
   },
   "title": "The Home Page"
}

The home page template below inherits the site’s shell from the base template, renders the subtitle and content as defined in the _index.md file, then renders of list of the site’s regular pages.

{{ define "main" }}
  <h3>{{ .Params.Subtitle }}</h3>
  {{ .Content }}
  {{ range site.RegularPages }}
    <h2><a href="{{ .RelPermalink }}">{{ .LinkTitle }}</a></h2>
  {{ end }}
{{ end }}