You can modify site settings in _config.yml or in an alternate config file.

Site

URL

Website in subdirectory

If your website is in a subdirectory (such as http://example.org/blog) set url to http://example.org/blog and set root to /blog/.

Examples:

# e.g. page.permalink is http://example.com/foo/bar/index.html
pretty_urls:
  trailing_index: false
# becomes http://example.com/foo/bar/

Directory

Examples:

skip_render: "mypage/**/*"
# will output `source/mypage/index.html` and `source/mypage/code.js` without altering them.

## This also can be used to exclude posts,
skip_render: "_posts/test-post.md"
# will ignore the `source/_posts/test-post.md`.

Writing

Home page setting

Category & Tag

Date / Time format

Hexo uses Moment.js to process dates.

Pagination

Examples:

pagination_dir: 'page'
# http://yoursite.com/page/2

pagination_dir: 'awesome-page'
# http://yoursite.com/awesome-page/2

Extensions

Include/Exclude Files or Folders

Use the following options to explicitly process or ignore certain files/folders. Support glob expressions for path matching.

include and exclude options only apply to the source/ folder, whereas ignore option applies to all folders.

Examples:

# Include/Exclude Files/Folders
include:
  - ".nojekyll"
  # Include 'source/css/_typing.css'.
  - "css/_typing.css"
  # Include any file in 'source/_css/'.
  - "_css/*"
  # Include any file and subfolder in 'source/_css/'.
  - "_css/**/*"

exclude:
  # Exclude 'source/js/test.js'.
  - "js/test.js"
  # Exclude any file in 'source/js/'.
  - "js/*"
  # Exclude any file and subfolder in 'source/js/'.
  - "js/**/*"
  # Exclude any file with filename that starts with 'test' in 'source/js/'.
  - "js/test*"
  # Exclude any file with filename that starts with 'test' in 'source/js/' and its subfolders.
  - "js/**/test*"
  # Do not use this to exclude posts in the 'source/_posts/'.
  # Use skip_render for that. Or prepend an underscore to the filename.
  # - "_posts/hello-world.md" # Does not work.

ignore:
  # Ignore any folder named 'foo'.
  - "**/foo"
  # Ignore 'foo' folder in 'themes/' only.
  - "**/themes/*/foo"
  # Same as above, but applies to every subfolders of 'themes/'.
  - "**/themes/**/foo"

Each value in the list must be enclosed with single/double quotes.

include: and exclude: do not apply to the themes/ folder. Either use ignore: or alternatively, prepend an underscore to the file/folder name to exclude.

* Notable exception is the source/_posts folder, but any file or folder with a name that starts with an underscore under that folder would still be ignored. Using include: rule in that folder is not recommended.

Using an Alternate Config

A custom config file path can be specified by adding the --config flag to your hexo commands with a path to an alternate YAML or JSON config file, or a comma-separated list (no spaces) of multiple YAML or JSON files.

# use 'custom.yml' in place of '_config.yml'
$ hexo server --config custom.yml

# use 'custom.yml' & 'custom2.json', prioritizing 'custom2.json'
$ hexo server --config custom.yml,custom2.json

Using multiple files combines all the config files and saves the merged settings to _multiconfig.yml. The later values take precedence. It works with any number of JSON and YAML files with arbitrarily deep objects. Note that no spaces are allowed in the list.

For instance, in the above example if foo: bar is in custom.yml, but "foo": "dinosaur" is in custom2.json, _multiconfig.yml will contain foo: dinosaur.

Overriding Theme Config

Hexo themes are independent projects, with separate _config.yml files.

Instead of forking a theme, and maintaining a custom branch with your settings, you can configure it from your site’s primary configuration file.

Example configuration:

# _config.yml
theme_config:
  bio: "My awesome bio"

# themes/my-theme/_config.yml
bio: "Some generic bio"
logo: "a-cool-image.png"

Resulting in theme configuration:

{
  bio: "My awesome bio",
  logo: "a-cool-image.png"
}