Shortcodes

What a Shortcode is

Hugo loves Markdown because of its simple content format, but there are times when Markdown falls short. Often, content authors are forced to add raw HTML (e.g., video <iframe>’s) to Markdown content. We think this contradicts the beautiful simplicity of Markdown’s syntax.

Hugo created shortcodes to circumvent these limitations.

A shortcode is a simple snippet inside a content file that Hugo will render using a predefined template. Note that shortcodes will not work in template files. If you need the type of drop-in functionality that shortcodes provide but in a template, you most likely want a partial template instead.

In addition to cleaner Markdown, shortcodes can be updated any time to reflect new classes, techniques, or standards. At the point of site generation, Hugo shortcodes will easily merge in your changes. You avoid a possibly complicated search and replace operation.

Use Shortcodes

In your content files, a shortcode can be called by calling {{% shortcodename parameters %}}. Shortcode parameters are space delimited, and parameters with internal spaces can be quoted.

The first word in the shortcode declaration is always the name of the shortcode. Parameters follow the name. Depending upon how the shortcode is defined, the parameters may be named, positional, or both, although you can’t mix parameter types in a single call. The format for named parameters models that of HTML with the format name="value".

Some shortcodes use or require closing shortcodes. Again like HTML, the opening and closing shortcodes match (name only) with the closing declaration, which is prepended with a slash.

Here are two examples of paired shortcodes:

{{% mdshortcode %}}Stuff to `process` in the *center*.{{% /mdshortcode %}}

{{< highlight go >}} A bunch of code here {{< /highlight >}}

The examples above use two different delimiters, the difference being the % character in the first and the <> characters in the second.

Shortcodes with raw string parameters

You can pass multiple lines as parameters to a shortcode by using raw string literals:

{{<  myshortcode `This is some <b>HTML</b>,
and a new line with a "quoted string".` >}}

Shortcodes with Markdown

In Hugo 0.55 we changed how the % delimiter works. Shortcodes using the % as the outer-most delimiter will now be fully rendered when sent to the content renderer. They can be part of the generated table of contents, footnotes, etc.

If you want the old behavior, you can put the following line in the start of your shortcode template:

{{ $_hugo_config := `{ "version": 1 }` }}

Shortcodes Without Markdown

The < character indicates that the shortcode’s inner content does not need further rendering. Often shortcodes without Markdown include internal HTML:

{{< myshortcode >}}<p>Hello <strong>World!</strong></p>{{< /myshortcode >}}

Nested Shortcodes

You can call shortcodes within other shortcodes by creating your own templates that leverage the .Parent variable. .Parent allows you to check the context in which the shortcode is being called. See Shortcode templates.

Use Hugo’s Built-in Shortcodes

Hugo ships with a set of predefined shortcodes that represent very common usage. These shortcodes are provided for author convenience and to keep your Markdown content clean.

figure

figure is an extension of the image syntax in Markdown, which does not provide a shorthand for the more semantic HTML5 <figure> element.

The figure shortcode can use the following named parameters:

src

URL of the image to be displayed.

link

If the image needs to be hyperlinked, URL of the destination.

target

Optional target attribute for the URL if link parameter is set.

rel

Optional rel attribute for the URL if link parameter is set.

alt

Alternate text for the image if the image cannot be displayed.

title

Image title.

caption

Image caption. Markdown within the value of caption will be rendered.

class

class attribute of the HTML figure tag.

height

height attribute of the image.

width

width attribute of the image.

attr

Image attribution text. Markdown within the value of attr will be rendered.

attrlink

If the attribution text needs to be hyperlinked, URL of the destination.

Example figure Input

{{< figure src="/media/spf13.jpg" title="Steve Francia" >}}

Example figure Output

<figure>
  <img src="/media/spf13.jpg"  />
  <figcaption>
      <h4>Steve Francia</h4>
  </figcaption>
</figure>

gist

Bloggers often want to include GitHub gists when writing posts. Let’s suppose we want to use the gist at the following url:

https://gist.github.com/spf13/7896402

We can embed the gist in our content via username and gist ID pulled from the URL:

{{< gist spf13 7896402 >}}

Example gist Input

If the gist contains several files and you want to quote just one of them, you can pass the filename (quoted) as an optional third argument:

{{< gist spf13 7896402 "img.html" >}}

Example gist Output

<script type="application/javascript" src="https://gist.github.com/spf13/7896402.js"></script>

Example gist Display

To demonstrate the remarkable efficiency of Hugo’s shortcode feature, we have embedded the spf13 gist example in this page. The following simulates the experience for visitors to your website. Naturally, the final display will depend on your stylesheets and surrounding markup.

highlight

This shortcode will convert the source code provided into syntax-highlighted HTML. Read more on highlighting. highlight takes exactly one required language parameter and requires a closing shortcode.

Example highlight Input

{{< highlight html >}}
<section id="main">
  <div>
   <h1 id="title">{{ .Title }}</h1>
    {{ range .Pages }}
        {{ .Render "summary"}}
    {{ end }}
  </div>
</section>
{{< /highlight >}}

Example highlight Output

The highlight shortcode example above would produce the following HTML when the site is rendered:

<span style="color: #f92672">&lt;section</span> <span style="color: #a6e22e">id=</span><span style="color: #e6db74">&quot;main&quot;</span><span style="color: #f92672">&gt;</span>
  <span style="color: #f92672">&lt;div&gt;</span>
   <span style="color: #f92672">&lt;h1</span> <span style="color: #a6e22e">id=</span><span style="color: #e6db74">&quot;title&quot;</span><span style="color: #f92672">&gt;</span>{{ .Title }}<span style="color: #f92672">&lt;/h1&gt;</span>
    {{ range .Pages }}
        {{ .Render &quot;summary&quot;}}
    {{ end }}
  <span style="color: #f92672">&lt;/div&gt;</span>
<span style="color: #f92672">&lt;/section&gt;</span>

instagram

If you’d like to embed a photo from Instagram, you only need the photo’s ID. You can discern an Instagram photo ID from the URL:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BWNjjyYFxVx/

Example instagram Input

{{< instagram BWNjjyYFxVx >}}

You also have the option to hide the caption:

{{< instagram BWNjjyYFxVx hidecaption >}}

Example instagram Output

By adding the preceding hidecaption example, the following HTML will be added to your rendered website’s markup:

Example instagram Display

Using the preceding instagram with hidecaption example above, the following simulates the displayed experience for visitors to your website. Naturally, the final display will be contingent on your style sheets and surrounding markup.

param

Gets a value from the current Page's params set in front matter, with a fallback to the site param value. It will log an ERROR if the param with the given key could not be found in either.

{{< param testparam >}}

Since testparam is a param defined in front matter of this page with the value Hugo Rocks!, the above will print:

To access deeply nested params, use “dot syntax”, e.g:

{{< param "my.nested.param" >}}

ref and relref

These shortcodes will look up the pages by their relative path (e.g., blog/post.md) or their logical name (post.md) and return the permalink (ref) or relative permalink (relref) for the found page.

ref and relref also make it possible to make fragmentary links that work for the header links generated by Hugo.

ref and relref take exactly one required parameter of reference, quoted and in position 0.

Example ref and relref Input

[Neat]({{< ref "blog/neat.md" >}})
[Who]({{< relref "about.md#who" >}})

Example ref and relref Output

Assuming that standard Hugo pretty URLs are turned on.

<a href="https://example.com/blog/neat">Neat</a>
<a href="/about/#who">Who</a>

tweet

You want to include a single tweet into your blog post? Everything you need is the URL of the tweet:

https://twitter.com/SanDiegoZoo/status/1453110110599868418

Example tweet Input

Pass the tweet’s user (case-insensitive) and ID from the URL as parameters to the tweet shortcode.

{{< tweet user="SanDiegoZoo" id="1453110110599868418" >}}

Example tweet Output

Using the preceding tweet example, the following HTML will be added to your rendered website’s markup:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Owl bet you&#39;ll lose this staring contest 🦉 <a href="https://t.co/eJh4f2zncC">pic.twitter.com/eJh4f2zncC</a></p>&mdash; San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance (@sandiegozoo) <a href="https://twitter.com/sandiegozoo/status/1453110110599868418?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 26, 2021</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Example tweet Display

Using the preceding tweet example, the following simulates the displayed experience for visitors to your website. Naturally, the final display will be contingent on your stylesheets and surrounding markup.

Owl bet you'll lose this staring contest 🦉 pic.twitter.com/eJh4f2zncC

— San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance (@sandiegozoo) October 26, 2021

vimeo

Adding a video from Vimeo is equivalent to the YouTube Input shortcode.

https://vimeo.com/channels/staffpicks/146022717

Example vimeo Input

Extract the ID from the video’s URL and pass it to the vimeo shortcode:

{{< vimeo 146022717 >}}

Example vimeo Output

Using the preceding vimeo example, the following HTML will be added to your rendered website’s markup:

<div style="position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden;">
  <iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/146022717" style="position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; border:0;" title="vimeo video" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen></iframe>
</div>

Example vimeo Display

Using the preceding vimeo example, the following simulates the displayed experience for visitors to your website. Naturally, the final display will be contingent on your stylesheets and surrounding markup.

youtube

The youtube shortcode embeds a responsive video player for YouTube videos. Only the ID of the video is required, e.g.:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7Ft2ymGmfc

Example youtube Input

Copy the YouTube video ID that follows v= in the video’s URL and pass it to the youtube shortcode:

{{< youtube w7Ft2ymGmfc >}}

Furthermore, you can automatically start playback of the embedded video by setting the autoplay parameter to true. Remember that you can’t mix named and unnamed parameters, so you’ll need to assign the yet unnamed video ID to the parameter id:

{{< youtube id="w7Ft2ymGmfc" autoplay="true" >}}

For accessibility reasons, it’s best to provide a title for your YouTube video. You can do this using the shortcode by providing a title parameter. If no title is provided, a default of “YouTube Video” will be used.

{{< youtube id="w7Ft2ymGmfc" title="A New Hugo Site in Under Two Minutes" >}}

Example youtube Output

Using the preceding youtube example, the following HTML will be added to your rendered website’s markup:

<div style="position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden;">
  <iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/w7Ft2ymGmfc?autoplay=1" style="position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; border:0;" allowfullscreen title="YouTube Video"></iframe>
</div>

Example youtube Display

Using the preceding youtube example (without autoplay="true"), the following simulates the displayed experience for visitors to your website. Naturally, the final display will be contingent on your style sheets and surrounding markup. The video is also include in the Quick Start of the Hugo documentation.

Privacy Config

To learn how to configure your Hugo site to meet the new EU privacy regulation, see Hugo and the GDPR.

Create Custom Shortcodes

To learn more about creating custom shortcodes, see the shortcode template documentation.