Debet Esse is a minimal, responsive Hugo theme for personal websites and blogs, built to generate fast, dependency-free static sites with no JavaScript and no external requests.
What is Debet Esse?
Debet Esse is a Hugo theme created by miikanissi for personal websites and blogs. It takes Hugo's static site generator as its foundation and produces a lightweight, responsive site with a homepage that lists posts, syntax highlighting, dark mode support, and SEO metadata. The theme is demonstrated live at https://miikanissi.com/.
Key Features
- Homepage with post list — The index page displays a chronological list of posts, giving visitors an immediate overview of recent content.
- Responsive design — The layout adapts cleanly to mobile devices without extra configuration.
- Syntax highlighting — Code blocks are highlighted for readability in technical blog posts.
- Automatic or manual dark mode — Visitors can follow the operating system's preference or manually switch between light and dark themes.
- No JavaScript, no web fonts, no external dependencies — The theme relies only on Hugo's generated HTML and CSS, keeping pages fast and private.
- SEO optimization — Search Engine Optimized output includes relevant descriptions and JSON-LD structured data.
- RSS feed — Posts are automatically published as an RSS feed.
- Internationalization — Custom translations can be added, so the theme supports multiple languages.
Who is it for?
- Personal bloggers — Use the theme to publish a clean, readable blog without complex configuration.
- Technical writers — Rely on syntax highlighting and fast loading to present code examples.
- Privacy-conscious site owners — Choose this theme to avoid third-party scripts, fonts, and external requests entirely.
Use cases
- Indie developers — Set up a personal portfolio site to showcase projects and recent posts with minimal maintenance.
- Researchers and academics — Publish a personal homepage with publication lists and a blog, using the built-in RSS and SEO features to reach readers.
- Journal and lifestyle writers — Create a mobile-friendly journal with dark mode for comfortable reading at night.
How does Debet Esse work?
Debet Esse runs as a standard Hugo theme. To install it, download or clone the repository into the themes folder of your Hugo site, either with git submodule add for existing git repositories or git clone for new ones. A sample configuration file is available in the author's own site repository and can be used as a starting point.
FAQ
Does Debet Esse include JavaScript?
No. The theme ships with zero JavaScript, which means no client-side processing, no third-party scripts, and no tracking. Dark mode toggling and responsive layout are handled entirely by Hugo templates and CSS, so pages load quickly and work without any browser-based computation.
Can I change the theme's language?
Yes. Debet Esse supports internationalization. You can create custom translation files using Hugo's i18n structure, which lets you translate the theme's navigation, buttons, and other UI strings into different languages. The theme's layout remains intact when you add languages, and Hugo will serve the appropriate translations based on the site's configuration.
How do I enable dark mode?
Dark mode can be set to automatic, which follows the visitor's operating system preference, or manual, letting visitors toggle it directly using a control in the interface. Both options are built into the theme, and site owners can configure the default behavior through the theme's configuration. When automatic mode is active, the theme chooses light or dark appearance based on the system's current setting.
