Hexo Theme Chi is a personal Hexo blog theme by Shaun, built with Bootstrap 4 and EJS, that turns Markdown posts into a CSS-animated blog site.
What is Hexo Theme Chi?
Hexo Theme Chi is a theme for the Hexo static site generator that renders Markdown content into a styled blog layout. The theme runs on Hexo 3 with Node.js (tested on v8.11.1) and uses Bootstrap 4, jQuery 3, Stylus, EJS, HTML5, CSS3, and ES6. It was developed by Shaun as a personal-use project and is hosted on GitHub with a repository description "个人自用hexo主题 | personal hexo blog theme". The theme's color scheme is based on spfk_x and its layout draws from hexo-theme-freemind, with some code borrowed from both.
Key Features
- Tech stack — Built with Bootstrap 4 for responsive layout, jQuery 3 for DOM manipulation, Stylus for preprocessed CSS, and EJS for template rendering.
- CSS-first animations — Animations are implemented in CSS wherever possible, keeping JavaScript code minimal and page load speed acceptable.
- Default code highlighting — Uses Hexo's built-in code highlighting; the author tried prettify but reverted due to poor results.
- Tested browsers — Only Firefox 60.5.0 esr and Chrome 72.0.3626.109 were tested; other browsers are not guaranteed to work.
- Recommended plugins — Works well with hexo-renderer-pandoc (requires removing hexo-renderer-marked), hexo-generator-feed, hexo-generator-searchdb, hexo-abbrlink, and hexo-all-minifier.
- Custom Markdown formatting — The author uses a script from 梦魇小栈 to beautify code blocks in Markdown; the script sometimes fails and requires manual adjustment.
Who is it for?
- Hexo bloggers who want a simple, personal theme with Bootstrap-based styling and are willing to use a theme with limited documentation.
- Front-end developers learning Hexo theme development who can study the Stylus and EJS code and adapt it to their own projects.
- Fans of the spfk_x or freemind aesthetics who want a similar look in a newer Hexo theme.
What can you do with it?
- Personal blogs: publish Markdown posts and have them rendered as a styled blog with responsive Bootstrap layout.
- Theme experimentation: tweak colors, animations, or templates by editing Stylus variables and EJS partials.
- Plugin integration: add RSS, local search, and asset minification by installing the recommended hexo plugins.
FAQ
Is Hexo Theme Chi free?
Yes, it is an open-source theme hosted on GitHub. It was made for personal use, but anyone can fork, clone, or submit issues.
Which Hexo version does it require?
Hexo Theme Chi was developed and tested with Hexo 3 (hexo-cli 1.1.0) and Node.js v8.11.1. Newer versions may work but are not officially tested.
Does the theme support code highlighting?
Yes, it uses the default Hexo code highlighting. The author attempted to integrate prettify but found the results unsatisfactory and kept the default style.
Are all browsers supported?
No, only Firefox 60.5.0 esr and Chrome 72.0.3626.109 were tested. Other browsers have not been tested by the author, who states no intention to test additional ones.
