Configuration
Every setting Fieldnotes reads from hugo.toml, with its default.
Hugo’s settings Fieldnotes needs
A theme can’t set Markdown settings for your site, so these go in your hugo.toml:
[markup.highlight]
noClasses = false # code colours as CSS classes, coloured by the scheme
[markup.goldmark.parser]
wrapStandAloneImageWithinParagraph = false # captions for photos with a title
[markup.goldmark.extensions.passthrough]
enable = true # maths reaches MathJax untouched
[markup.goldmark.extensions.passthrough.delimiters]
block = [['\[', '\]'], ['$$', '$$']]
inline = [['\(', '\)']]And Hugo’s own settings that Fieldnotes uses:
| Setting | What it does here |
|---|---|
baseURL | the site’s address: links, feeds, search engines |
title | the site’s name in the header, the footer and the browser tab |
locale | the page’s language, and how dates are written (en-US: October 19, 2026) |
menus.main | the header’s links (The menu) |
pagination.pagerSize | posts per page in lists (default 10) |
enableRobotsTXT | true publishes Hugo’s robots.txt |
disableKinds | ["taxonomy", "term"] leaves out tag and category pages, which Fieldnotes doesn’t link to yet |
Params
Under [params]. Plain keys first, then the tables ([params.style] and so on), because in TOML a key after a table
header belongs to that table.
| Param | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
description | "" | the site’s description for search engines and link previews |
mainSections | the largest section | the sections whose posts the home page lists |
math | false | MathJax on every page; a page’s math wins |
socialIcons | none | the home page’s icons: a list of { name, url, title } (Social icons) |
images | none | a fallback image for link previews, a path in assets/ |
author.name | none | your name for search engines (Search engines) |
author.alternateName | none | another form of your name |
author.jobTitle | none | what you do |
author.image | the home photo | a photo of you for search engines |
author.affiliation.name, .url | none | where you work or study |
style.preset | "fieldnotes" | the preset |
style.scheme | the preset’s | the colour scheme |
mode.default | "light" | "light", "dark" or "auto" (Light and dark) |
mode.toggle | true | the light/dark switch in the header |
fonts.body, .heading, .mono | the preset’s | fonts from Google Fonts, by family name |
fonts.url | "" | a whole Google Fonts address, instead of the one Fieldnotes builds |
fonts.google | true | false loads no fonts from Google |
background.light, .dark | the preset’s | "grid", "dots", "none" or an image in assets/ (Backgrounds) |
background.size | "" | the size an image tile repeats at, like "120px" |
colors.light.*, colors.dark.* | the scheme’s | single colours: bg, surface, text, primary, secondary, tertiary, accent, border, pattern |
favicon.svg | "favicon.svg" | the favicon, a file in static/ (the theme has one) |
favicon.ico | "favicon.ico" | the favicon for older browsers |
favicon.appleTouch | "apple-touch-icon.png" | a 180 × 180 PNG for phone home screens |
map.style | "topo-v4" | the trip maps’ MapTiler style in light mode |
map.styleDark | "topo-v4-dark" | the same in dark mode |
map.sdk | "4.2.0" | the version of MapTiler’s map library |
gallery.lightbox | "0.3.1" | the version of dialog-lightbox (opens in a new tab), the photo viewer |
Environment variables
| Variable | What it does |
|---|---|
HUGO_MAPTILER_KEY | the MapTiler key for trip maps, read when Hugo builds the site (The MapTiler key) |
A complete example
The demo’s hugo.toml (opens in a new tab) sets almost
everything, with a comment on each line.