A Shell Script to Simplify Hugo Page Bundle Creation

Archetypes and the hugo new command make creating new content based on predefined frontmatter fields in Hugo easy as pie. But if you’re like me, the syntax for doing so tends to escape you when you need it most — especially when page bundles or content sections are involved.

I try to avoid context switches and start writing ASAP when creativity strikes to keep my ideas flowing.

In this post, I’ll show you how to write a short shell script to help remedy this. It’s nothing too complex. You should be able to follow along even if you’re not familiar with the syntax.

Assumptions

1. You’ve defined a page bundle archetype within your Hugo project (e.g. archetypes/posts/index.md). If you don’t have one, you can copy the default or your custom (standard) archetype into a same-named directory, and change the file name to index.md as shown in the path above.
2. You’re creating content under a section or subsection (e.g. posts, posts/tutorials). This isn’t worth automating otherwise.
3. You prefer generating content as (leaf) page bundles, not standard single pages. The syntax is easy to remember in the latter case.

Writing the Script

Create the File

Create the file new.sh in the base directory of your project. The whole idea is to keep the name short to avoid extra typing.

1touch new.sh

Arguments

Our script will have 3 available arguments:

1. archetype-name (required)
2. section-name (optional)
3. post-name (required)

If section-name is omitted, the content will be created in the same section specified by the archetype-name.

Step 1: Require Arguments

First, ensure that at least 2 arguments are provided via stdin. If not, output usage instructions and terminate the script.

1# Require at least 2 arguments
2if [ $# -lt 2 ]; then
3  echo "Usage: $0 <archetype-name> <section-name> <post-name>"
4  exit 1
5fi

Step 2: Conditional Variables

Next, store the first argument in a variable and conditionally omit the section if only 2 arguments are provided. Note that, if included, the section name is read in before the post name.

 1# Store the 1st argument in a variable
 2archetype="$1"
 3
 4# Check if there are 3 arguments
 5# If so, store both the post and section in variables
 6if [ $# -eq 3 ]; then
 7  section="$2"
 8  post="$3"
 9else
10  section=""
11  post="$2"
12fi

Step 3: Conditional Creation

Lastly, use the hugo new command to generate the content based on the existence of the section.

1# Use the variables in the hugo new command
2if [ -n "$section" ]; then
3  hugo new --kind "$archetype" "$section/$post"
4else
5  hugo new --kind "$archetype" "$archetype/$post"
6fi

• The $archetype argument passed to the --kind flag specifies the archetype used to create the bundle.
• The $section can be a top-level section (e.g. posts output to content/posts/) or a subsection (e.g. posts/tutorials output to content/posts/tutorials/).
• The $post is the name of your post. When creating a bundle, the output file will be index.md, but the directory name and title itself will take on this argument’s value, assuming the title field in your archetype is set to the default or similar: title: {{ replace .Name "-" " " | title }}.

Sample Usage

Before running the script, give it executable permissions.

1chmod +x new.sh

To run it from the current directory:

1# Creates `content/posts/post/index.md`
2./new.sh posts post
3# Creates `content/blog/post/index.md` (using the posts archetype)
4./new.sh posts blog post
5# Creates `content/posts/tutorials/post/index.md`
6./new.sh posts posts/tutorials post

The Full Hugo Page Bundle Shell Script

That’s it! Like I said, nice and simple.

Feel free to copy the full script below and use it in your Hugo projects.

 1# Require at least 2 arguments
 2if [ $# -lt 2 ]; then
 3  echo "Usage: $0 <archetype-name> <section-name> <post-name>"
 4  exit 1
 5fi
 6
 7# Store the 1st argument in a variable
 8archetype="$1"
 9
10# Check if there are 3 arguments
11# If so, store both the post and section in variables
12if [ $# -eq 3 ]; then
13  section="$2"
14  post="$3"
15else
16  section=""
17  post="$2"
18fi
19
20# Use the variables in the hugo new command
21if [ -n "$section" ]; then
22  hugo new --kind "$archetype" "$section/$post"
23else
24  hugo new --kind "$archetype" "$archetype/$post"
25fi