Black is a minimalist Hugo theme by SunkenPotato, built for anonymous, low-profile personal websites that prioritize readability and low visual clutter.
What is Black?
Black is a Hugo theme that transforms standard Hugo site content — markdown files and a config.toml — into a static website with high-contrast, reduced-clutter pages. It is developed by SunkenPotato and released under the MIT license (Copyright © 2024). The theme uses broadly available fonts like Inter and Geist Mono to reduce eye strain, and it is demonstrated on SunkenPotato's own site at https://sunkenpotato.com.
Key Features
- Minimalist design — Removes unnecessary decorative elements and maximizes contrast between text and backgrounds.
- Global font pairing — Uses Inter and Geist Mono, widely tested typefaces, for comfortable reading.
- Configurable navigation — Define main-menu items in config.toml with name, URL, weight, and an optional
disabledflag. - Custom shortcodes — Adds a
spacershortcode for vertical whitespace and adividershortcode with an optional hexclparameter for color. - Front image support — Set a base image for the site via the
params.frontimageconfiguration. - Flexible installation — Install by copying files to
themes/black,git cloneinto that folder, or add as a git submodule for straightforward updates. - Full Hugo shortcode compatibility — All default Hugo shortcodes, such as
figure, work alongside the theme's custom ones.
Who is it for?
- Personal website owners — Individuals who want a no-nonsense site that emphasizes content over decoration, as the theme was created for the developer's own personal site.
- Hugo users — People already comfortable with Hugo's config.toml and shortcode system who want a fast, low-profile starting point.
- Readers and writers — Anyone who values high text-background contrast and minimal distractions for long-form reading.
What can you do with Black?
- Bloggers: Publish markdown posts that render as clean, high-contrast articles without sidebar clutter.
- Minimalist portfolios: Use the front image parameter and main-menu configuration to present a single-page or multi-page personal site.
- Tinkerers: Extend the theme by editing its templates directly or by adding custom shortcodes, since the codebase is openly MIT-licensed.
How does Black work?
You install Black into a Hugo project's themes directory, either by copying the repository files, running git clone https://github.com/SunkenPotato/black.git themes/black, or adding it as a submodule with git submodule add https://github.com/SunkenPotato/black.git themes/black. Then create a config.toml that specifies your site title, base URL, and theme = "black", plus any menu entries and the optional front image. The theme's custom shortcodes (spacer and divider) can be inserted into content wherever extra space or a horizontal rule is needed.
Pricing
Black is free and open source under the MIT license. There are no paid tiers or premium features — the repository is publicly available on GitHub.
FAQ
Is Black free?
Yes. Black is released under the MIT license, so you can use, modify, and distribute it freely with attribution to the original copyright holder, SunkenPotato.
Does Black support multiple languages?
The config.toml example includes a languageCode field set to "en-US", but the theme documentation notes that this setting is not supported yet. As of now, the theme is effectively English-only.
How do I add a menu item?
In config.toml, add an entry under [menu.main] with a name, URL, and weight. You can also set an optional disabled parameter inside [menu.main.params] to hide the item.
What custom shortcodes does Black include?
Black includes two custom shortcodes on top of Hugo's defaults: spacer, which inserts an empty div that adds vertical space, and divider, which draws a horizontal line and accepts an optional hexadecimal color value via the cl parameter.
Where can I see Black in action?
The theme's example website is live at https://sunkenpotato.com, which is also the developer's personal site. The source repository is at https://github.com/SunkenPotato/black.
