Prototype bike frame

Over the past weeks I’ve been working on a way to not only write my devlog in Obsidian, but also turn it directly into a publishable website using Hugo. The result: I can now write, build, and publish without ever leaving my favorite environment. And honestly, it feels incredibly smooth.

Installing Hugo

Before I could start, I had to install Hugo locally. Fortunately, that’s quite easy:

  1. Download Hugo from the official site: https://gohugo.io
  2. Extract the file and place hugo.exe in a folder that’s in your PATH (for example C:\Hugo\bin).
  3. Verify the installation with:
hugo version

If you see a version number, you’re good to go.

My workflow in Obsidian

Inside my Obsidian vault, I’ve created a dedicated Hugo folder that acts as the root of the site. The structure looks like this:

Hugo/
├─ archetypes/
├─ assets/
├─ content/
│ ├─ en/
│ │ ├─ posts/
│ │ └─ vision/
│ └─ nl/
│ ├─ posts/
│ └─ visie/
├─ layouts/
├─ public/
├─ static/
├─ themes/
├─ hugo.toml
└─ netlify.toml

Each post is written directly in Obsidian, in plain Markdown. Writing stays simple and clean.

Bilingual setup

My devlog is bilingual: English and Dutch. In hugo.toml, it’s configured like this:

[languages.en]
languageName = "English"
weight = 1
contentDir = "content/en"
[languages.nl]
languageName = "Nederlands"
weight = 2
contentDir = "content/nl"

Hugo automatically generates the right URLs, like /en/posts/ and /nl/visie/.

Hosting on Netlify

For hosting, I use Netlify. It’s free, fast, and easy to set up. My netlify.toml looks like this:

[build]
command = "hugo"
publish = "public"

Every time I build, I can push it live instantly through Netlify.

One-click publishing

The best part is that I can publish directly from Obsidian using a simple CMD script:

@echo off
setlocal
cd /d "%~dp0"
echo Building with Hugo...
hugo --gc --cleanDestinationDir
echo Deploying to Netlify (production)...
netlify deploy --prod --dir=public
pause >nul
endlocal

With one click, Hugo builds the site and Netlify takes it live. No hassle, just publish.

Reflection

It feels great to have writing, building, and publishing all in one environment.

“With a single click my journal is online — writing suddenly feels a whole lot lighter.”