Static Files

By default, the static/ directory in the site project is used for all static files (e.g. stylesheets, JavaScript, images). The static files are served on the site root path (eg. if you have the file static/image.png you can access it using http://{server-url}/image.png, to include it in a document you can use ![Example image](/image.png) ).

Hugo can be configured to look into a different directory, or even multiple directories for such static files by configuring the staticDir parameter in the site config. All the files in all the static directories will form a union filesystem.

This union filesystem will be served from your site root. So a file <SITE PROJECT>/static/me.png will be accessible as <MY_BASEURL>/me.png.

Here’s an example of setting staticDir and staticDir2 for a multi-language site:

languages:
  en:
    baseURL: https://example.com
    languageName: English
    staticDir2: static_en
    title: In English
    weight: 2
  "no":
    baseURL: https://example.no
    languageName: Norsk
    staticDir:
    - staticDir_override
    - static_no
    title: På norsk
    weight: 1
staticDir:
- static1
- static2

staticDir = ['static1', 'static2']
[languages]
  [languages.en]
    baseURL = 'https://example.com'
    languageName = 'English'
    staticDir2 = 'static_en'
    title = 'In English'
    weight = 2

  [languages.no]
    baseURL = 'https://example.no'
    languageName = 'Norsk'
    staticDir = ['staticDir_override', 'static_no']
    title = 'På norsk'
    weight = 1

{
   "languages": {
      "en": {
         "baseURL": "https://example.com",
         "languageName": "English",
         "staticDir2": "static_en",
         "title": "In English",
         "weight": 2
      },
      "no": {
         "baseURL": "https://example.no",
         "languageName": "Norsk",
         "staticDir": [
            "staticDir_override",
            "static_no"
         ],
         "title": "På norsk",
         "weight": 1
      }
   },
   "staticDir": [
      "static1",
      "static2"
   ]
}

In the above, with no theme used:

• The English site will get its static files as a union of “static1”, “static2” and “static_en”. On file duplicates, the right-most version will win.
• The Norwegian site will get its static files as a union of “staticDir_override” and “static_no”.

Note 1

The 2 (can be a number between 0 and 10) in staticDir2 is added to tell Hugo that you want to add this directory to the global set of static directories defined using staticDir. Using staticDir on the language level would replace the global value (as can be seen in the Norwegian site case).

Note 2

The example above is a multihost setup. In a regular setup, all the static directories will be available to all sites.