Hugo static sites in Castle

This is a stack — creation-time guidance for writing new sites. A stack is a template + conventions, not a runtime requirement. castle program create --stack hugo scaffolds from it (via Hugo's own hugo new site) and seeds the program's default build verb. An existing Hugo site adopted with castle program add doesn't need this stack — it declares its own commands: / build:. See @docs/registry.md for commands:, stack: (optional), and repo:.

How to build, serve, and manage Hugo sites as castle programs.

Stack

Generator: Hugo (extended recommended — needed for SCSS/asset processing)
Build: hugo --gc --minify → public/
Served: manager: caddy static deployment, in place at <name>.<gateway.domain>
Package manager (only if a theme needs an asset pipeline): pnpm

Hugo has one meaningful dev verb — build. It has no native lint/test/type-check, so the stack advertises only build / install / uninstall; castle check and friends aren't offered (a site can still declare its own, e.g. an HTML linter, under commands: — a declared verb always wins over the stack).

Create a new site

castle program create my-site --stack hugo --description "My site"
cd /data/repos/my-site
castle program build my-site      # hugo --gc --minify -> public/
castle apply my-site              # serve at my-site.<gateway.domain>

The scaffold delegates the canonical skeleton to hugo new site (archetypes/, content/, layouts/, static/, themes/, hugo.toml) and overlays the pieces a bare skeleton lacks: minimal layouts/ so the site builds and serves without a theme, an example content/posts/hello.md, a castle-flavored hugo.toml (baseURL = "/", so assets resolve at the root of the site's own subdomain), and a .gitignore for the regenerated public/ and resources/.

Develop with the live server:

hugo server -D        # http://localhost:1313, rebuilds on save

Adding a theme

Drop a theme under themes/ (usually a git submodule) and set theme in hugo.toml:

git submodule add https://github.com/<owner>/<theme>.git themes/<theme>

Themes with an asset pipeline (e.g. Blowfish + Tailwind) need a pre-build step before hugo. Declare it as a two-step build in programs/<name>.yaml — a declared build.commands overrides the stack's single-step default:

build:
  commands:
    - [pnpm, build]          # compile the theme's CSS/JS
    - [hugo, --gc, --minify] # render the site -> public/
  outputs: [public]

One-time setup those themes expect (run once in the source tree):

git submodule update --init --recursive
cd themes/<theme> && pnpm install

Deployment shape

castle program create --stack hugo writes:

programs/<name>.yaml — source, stack: hugo, build.outputs: [public].
deployments/statics/<name>.yaml — manager: caddy, root: public, reach: internal (flip to public to also expose over the tunnel).

The gateway serves <source>/public in place — no copy, no Node/Hugo process at runtime. castle program build regenerates public/; castle apply renders the route and reloads the gateway.

Adopting an existing Hugo site

No stack needed — adopt the repo and declare how it builds:

castle program add /path/to/site --name my-site

Then set build.commands (as above) and add a manager: caddy deployment. This is how a site with a bespoke build (submodule theme + Tailwind) is wired without the scaffold. See @docs/registry.md.

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