HikaeMe is a minimalist Hugo theme built to display only the essential elements readers need, stripping away sidebars, widgets, and visual noise to deliver a focused reading experience. The theme is built on Hugo, the static site generator, and uses Bootstrap 5, SCSS, and TypeScript for its front-end stack. It renders standard Hugo content (Markdown files) into clean, responsive pages suitable for blogs and personal websites. The project is hosted on GitHub by htnabe and is released under the MIT License, making it free for personal and commercial use.
What is HikaeMe?
HikaeMe is a Hugo theme that prioritizes content readability by showing only the bare minimum elements required for reading. It takes your Hugo site's Markdown content as input and produces static HTML pages with a distraction-free layout. The theme is written in HTML, SCSS, and TypeScript, and it uses Bootstrap 5 for responsive grid and utility classes. The repository includes a live demo at the author's personal blog, t-pot.me, so you can see the theme in action before installing it.
Key Features
- Minimal design philosophy — The theme intentionally omits decorative elements, keeping only content, navigation, and essential metadata on the page.
- Bootstrap 5 foundation — Built on Bootstrap 5, giving you a mobile-first responsive layout and access to Bootstrap's utility classes for quick customization.
- SCSS custom styling — All custom styles are authored in SCSS, so you can adjust variables like colors and spacing to match your brand.
- TypeScript enhancements — Client-side behavior is implemented in TypeScript, which compiles to JavaScript for better type safety during development.
- Japanese and English documentation — Getting-started guides are provided in both English and Japanese, making the theme accessible to a wider audience.
- Semantic versioning with Go modules — The repository uses Go module semantic import versioning; v1.x releases use the original import path, while v2.x and later use the /v2 path, so you can manage dependencies predictably.
Who is it for?
- Minimalist bloggers — Writers who want their content to be the sole focus, with no sidebars, share buttons, or other distractions.
- Hugo developers — Developers who need a clean starting point they can extend with SCSS and TypeScript, or who want a theme small enough to understand completely.
- Japanese-speaking site owners — Since the guidance is available in Japanese, non-English speakers can set up and configure the theme without language barriers.
- Personal blog owners — Individuals who want a fast, simple site that loads quickly and presents articles in a reading-first format.
What can you do with HikaeMe?
- Publish articles — Write Markdown content in your Hugo site, and HikaeMe will render it with a clean, single-column layout that keeps readers focused.
- Build a personal site — Use the theme to create a personal blog or portfolio site that emphasizes content over visual clutter.
- Customize appearance — Modify SCSS variables or add Bootstrap utility classes to adjust colors, fonts, and spacing without touching the core template files.
- Learn Hugo theming — Study the theme's templates and structure to understand how a minimal Hugo theme is organized, since the codebase is intentionally small.
How does HikaeMe work?
To use HikaeMe, you add the theme to your Hugo site's themes directory, for example by cloning the GitHub repository. Then you set your site config to use "HikaeMe" as the active theme, and Hugo automatically applies its templates to your content. The theme uses Go module semantic import versioning, so v2.x and later releases require updating your module path to github.com/htnabe/HikaeMe/v2. The repository also includes release notes that mark deprecated versions on the GitHub Releases page.
FAQ
Is HikaeMe free?
Yes, HikaeMe is open-source software released under the MIT License. You can use it for personal and commercial projects free of charge, and modify it as you wish.
Does HikaeMe support languages other than English?
The theme's guidance documents are currently available in English and Japanese. The theme itself doesn't impose language restrictions, so your content can be in any language.
What is the demo URL for HikaeMe?
The demo is the author's personal blog at t-pot.me, where you can see the theme in an actual production environment.
What are the system requirements for HikaeMe?
You need Hugo (the static site generator) installed on your machine. The theme's code uses Bootstrap 5, SCSS, and TypeScript, but Hugo handles the build process when you generate your site.
How do I install HikaeMe?
You can clone the repository into your Hugo themes folder and then specify the theme name in your config file. Detailed instructions are provided in the English and Japanese getting-started guides in the docs folder.
