Hugo Bear Neo is a free, minimal, and fast Hugo theme for blogging, extending the original Hugo Bear Blog with features like upvotes, search, TOC, and Mermaid diagrams.
What is Hugo Bear Neo?
Hugo Bear Neo is a Hugo theme based on the Bear Blog design philosophy — no-nonsense, super-fast blogging. It takes Markdown content and a hugo.toml configuration as inputs and produces a static blog with the classic Bear Blog aesthetic. The theme is developed by Rokcso, is available on GitHub under the MIT License, and requires Hugo v0.110.0 or later. It was transplanted from Hugo Bear Blog to offer a more extensible and feature-rich theme while remaining able to revert to configurations identical to the original Bear Blog if desired.
Key Features
- Upvote posts — Built-in Bear Blog-style upvoting powered by Kudos, a Cloudflare Workers and D1 service; configure the
upvoteURLinhugo.tomland each page's upvote count persists independently of the site domain. - Post search — Adds a search box to the post list page that filters posts by title keywords; enable with the
postSearch = trueparameter. - Year-grouped post list — Optionally display posts grouped by year instead of a flat list; enable with
groupByYear = true. - Table of contents — Automatically generate a table of contents for long-form posts; enable with
toc = true. - Image zoom — Allow readers to click images to zoom; enable with
imageZoom = true. - Mermaid diagrams — Render Mermaid flowchart diagrams by setting
mermaid: truein a page's front matter and using a Mermaid fenced code block; Mermaid JavaScript only loads on pages that opt in. - External link handling — Open external HTTP(S) links in a new tab with
rel="noopener noreferrer"while keeping internal links in the same tab; controlled byexternalLinksNewTab. - Follow App Claim — Native support for claiming the blog on Follow using Scheme III RSS Tag; configure
followFeedIdandfollowUserIdunder[params.RSS].
Who is it for?
- Minimalist bloggers — People who want a fast, distraction-free blog that follows the Bear Blog design, with optional upvotes and search.
- Hugo developers — Developers who want an extensible Hugo theme they can customize, with a clean codebase based on Hugo Bear Blog.
- Technical writers — Writers publishing tutorials or documentation who need Mermaid diagrams, a table of contents, and image zoom for their readers.
What can you do with Hugo Bear Neo?
- Personal bloggers: publish Markdown posts and let readers upvote them using the Kudos endpoint.
- Technical writers: embed Mermaid flowcharts in articles and enable TOC so readers can navigate long guides.
- RSS-based creators: claim the blog on Follow to receive $POWER tips from readers by adding your Feed ID and User ID.
How does Hugo Bear Neo work?
The theme works like any Hugo theme: you clone the repository into your site's themes folder, set theme = "hugo-bearneo" in your hugo.toml, and start the local server with hugo server. Optional features are toggled via parameters in the same config file, and the upvote feature requires deploying the separate Kudos service first.
FAQ
Does Hugo Bear Neo require any specific Hugo version?
Yes, the theme requires Hugo v0.110.0 or later. Older versions may not support the features used.
Is Hugo Bear Neo free to use?
Yes, the theme is open source and released under the MIT License, so it is free to use and modify.
