Create hugo site with docker

Create a Hugo site and run it from Docker without installing Hugo on the host.

Add the Hugo Docker image

Save this as Dockerfile in an empty working folder:

FROM ubuntu

RUN apt update && apt install hugo -y

WORKDIR /site
ENTRYPOINT [ "hugo", "-D" ]

Build the image:

docker build -t hugo .

Create the site from Docker

Create the site:

docker run --rm \
  -v "$(pwd)":/work \
  -w /work \
  --entrypoint hugo \
  hugo new site my-site

The site root is my-site/.

Configure the theme

Hugo loads themes from the themes/ folder inside the site root.

If the config contains:

theme: "vanilla"

Hugo looks for this folder:

my-site/
  themes/
    vanilla/

Clone or copy the theme into that exact path:

git clone https://github.com/zwbetz-gh/vanilla-bootstrap-hugo-theme my-site/themes/vanilla

The folder name must match the theme value.

Configure the site

Hugo reads the site config from the site root. With YAML, use my-site/config.yaml or my-site/hugo.yaml.

Set theme and publishDir as top-level keys:

baseURL: "http://localhost:1313"
languageCode: "en-us"
title: "My Hugo Site"
theme: "vanilla"
publishDir: "../site-output"

theme tells Hugo which folder to load from themes/.

publishDir tells Hugo where to write the generated site. The path is relative to the site root. If omitted, Hugo writes to public/.

Run the local server

Start the development server:

docker run --rm -it \
  -v "$(pwd)/my-site":/site \
  -p 1313:1313 \
  --entrypoint hugo \
  hugo serve --bind 0.0.0.0 --source /site --buildDrafts --watch

The site is available at http://localhost:1313.

Generate the static site

If publishDir stays inside the site root, build with:

docker run --rm \
  -v "$(pwd)/my-site":/site \
  --entrypoint hugo \
  hugo --source /site

If publishDir points outside the site root, mount the parent folder that contains both the site and the output path:

docker run --rm \
  -v "$(pwd)":/work \
  --entrypoint hugo \
  hugo --source /work/my-site

This writes the generated files to the path defined in publishDir.