Icarus is a responsive Hugo blog theme, a port of Ruipeng Zhang's Hexo theme of the same name, that turns a Hugo site into a blog with a left profile sidebar, right widgets, and Disqus comments.
What is Icarus?
Icarus is a Hugo theme for bloggers, ported from the Hexo theme created by Ruipeng Zhang. It takes Hugo content files and renders a blog with a profile section on the left, optional widgets on the right, and per-post comments via Disqus. The theme is released under the MIT license and is no longer maintained; a maintained fork is available at gitlab.com/toryanderson/hugo-icarus.
The theme requires Git and Hugo to install, and it is structured so that configuration lives in a config.toml file plus a localization file at data/l10n.toml. Setup involves cloning the repository into the themes directory and copying the example site's config and data folders to your site root.
Key Features
- Disqus comment system — set your shortname in
disqusShortnameto enable comments; disable per page withdisable_comments = truein frontmatter. - Localization support — all UI strings are in
data/l10n.toml, so you can translate the theme by editing that one file. - Syntax highlighting — source code blocks in posts are highlighted automatically.
- Sidebar widgets — choose among recent articles, category list, tag list, and tag cloud by toggling
[params.widgets]options. - Profile section — add social usernames under
socialin the config and the theme generates links automatically. - MathJax equations — render LaTeX and MathML math with MathJax; wrap LaTeX in double dollar signs for display equations and single dollar signs for inline. Set
disable_mathjax = trueto skip loading the library. - Gallery shortcode — embed a gallery by passing relative image paths to the
galleryshortcode. - Configurable menu — link posts in the menu by setting
menu = "main"in frontmatter, or add ad-hoc menu entries via[[params.menu]]blocks withlabel,link, andbefore.
Who should use Icarus?
- Bloggers who need a clean, responsive layout with a classic sidebar and comments.
- Hugo users migrating from Hexo who want to keep the same Icarus look and feel.
- Developers who want a theme they can localize and tweak through TOML configuration files.
What can you do with Icarus?
- Technical bloggers: publish posts with LaTeX equations rendered by MathJax and code highlighted for readability.
- Content creators: arrange images into galleries using the built-in shortcode without writing custom HTML.
- Multilingual writers: translate the entire interface by editing the localization file, then serve content in multiple languages.
How does Icarus work?
Installation follows the standard Hugo theme workflow: clone the repository into your themes directory, copy config.toml and the data folder from the exampleSite directory to your site root, and run hugo server to preview. The example site sets themesDir = "../.." so it works standalone; production sites must comment that line out or Hugo will not find the theme.
