Light is a minimalist, open-source theme for the Hexo static site generator that turns a standard Hexo blog into a fast, widget-driven site with gallery and link post support.
What is Light?
Light is a simple Hexo theme maintained under the hexojs GitHub organization, designed for bloggers who want a clean, typography-first layout without heavy JavaScript. It takes a Hexo site (already generated from Markdown files and front-matter) and renders it as a static HTML site with a sidebar, menu navigation, and several optional widgets. The theme is configured entirely through a YAML file in themes/light, and it integrates with Hexo's standard post and page system, requiring only the theme: light setting in your _config.yml to activate.
Key Features
- Gallery post layout — Add a
layout: photofront-matter field with a list of image URLs to render a full-width image gallery inside a post. - Link post layout — Set
layout: linkand alinkfield in front-matter to create a post that links out to an external URL, commonly used for link blogs. - Sidebar widgets — Built-in widgets for site search, category lists, tag clouds, and a Twitter feed, all enabled or disabled via the
widgetconfig option. - Fancybox integration — When the
fancybox: trueconfig is enabled, all post images open in the Fancybox lightbox with swipe and zoom support. - Configurable navigation menu — The
menuoption lets you define the main nav links (e.g., Home, Archives) with custom URLs. - Twitter widget — Configure a Twitter username, choose whether to show replies, and set how many tweets are displayed with
tweet_count. - RSS and Google Analytics — The
rssandgoogle_analyticsconfig fields inject your feed link and analytics tracking ID. - Excerpt "Read More" link — Customize the text shown after post excerpts with the
excerpt_linkoption.
Who is it for?
- Personal bloggers — Set up a clean personal blog with a sidebar for categories and tags, and customize the menu to point to your About or Contact pages.
- Photo bloggers — Use the gallery post format to publish image-heavy posts without building a custom page.
- Developers looking for a lean theme — Get a theme with no build step, no CSS framework, and minimal external dependencies, easy to fork and modify in plain template files.
- Link aggregators — Use the link post layout to share quick links, similar to Tumblr-style link blogs.
What can you do with it?
- Start a blog in minutes — Install via
git clone --depth 1intothemes/light, change your theme config, and run Hexo to generate a static site. - Create a photo series — Write a post with
layout: photoand list image URLs in thephotosfront-matter field to get an automatic gallery. - Push updates with git — Because the theme is cloned as a git repo, update it with
git pullinside thethemes/lightdirectory. - Customize widgets without code — Toggle the search, category, tag, and Twitter widgets purely from the YAML config, no template edits required.
How does Light work?
Installation is a two-step process: clone the repository into your Hexo themes folder, then set theme: light in your site's _config.yml. Updating is done by running git pull inside the theme directory. The theme reads standard Hexo front-matter, plus its own config file, to render pages and posts.
FAQ
How do I install Light?
Clone the theme into your Hexo themes folder with git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/hexojs/hexo-theme-light themes/light, then edit _config.yml to set theme: light.
Is Light free?
Yes, Light is an open-source theme hosted on GitHub under the hexojs organization, and it is free to use and modify.
Does Light support Fancybox?
Yes, set fancybox: true in the theme config to enable Fancybox lightbox for all images in your posts.
Can I change the "Read More" text?
Yes, the excerpt_link config option lets you set the link text shown after post excerpts, such as "Read More" or "继续阅读".
What widgets are available in the sidebar?
The bundled widgets are search, category, tag, and Twitter. You enable or disable them individually through the widget list in the theme config.
