Lambda

Lambda is a Hugo theme that recreates Half-Life's dark green and orange aesthetic for a static site, built by Koenraad (koenra.ad) and distributed under the MIT License. It takes standard Hugo content and configuration and outputs a themed, responsive static website with monospace typography and automatic WebP image processing.

What is Lambda?

Lambda is a dark, minimalist Hugo theme styled after the Half-Life video game series by Valve Corporation. Running on the Hugo static site generator, it takes Markdown content plus hugo.toml configuration and produces a themed static site with dark green backgrounds, orange accents, and green links. The theme is created by Koenraad and released under the MIT License.

Key Features

• Half-Life aesthetic — dark green backgrounds (#0d1410), orange accents (#ff6600), and green links (#00ff66), with all colors exposed as CSS custom properties.
• Responsive images — automatic WebP conversion with 1x/2x srcsets for high-density displays.
• Clean typography — monospace fonts throughout for a terminal-like reading feel.
• Breadcrumb navigation — breadcrumbs are generated automatically from content structure.
• Customizable design system — a spacing scale on an 8px base unit (--space-xs through --space-xl, from 0.5rem to 3rem) and a full palette of color variables overridable in static/css/custom.css.
• Simple configuration — the theme is enabled by one line in hugo.toml, with description and author params.
• Hugo framework — the theme runs on Hugo, not a JavaScript framework; no Tailwind, React, or build pipeline beyond Hugo itself.

Who is it for?

• Hugo site owners wanting a themed look: set theme = 'lambda' in hugo.toml and get the dark green/orange visual identity immediately.
• Half-Life and retro sci-fi fans: anyone building a personal blog or project site with a terminal-style monospace look.
• Developers who want design-system control: the CSS custom properties let you retune colors and spacing without editing theme internals.
• Sites with image-heavy content: the built-in WebP conversion and srcsets handle responsive images automatically.

How does Lambda work?

Install the theme as a Git submodule (git submodule add https://github.com/koenemans/lambda.git themes/lambda) or by cloning it into your-hugo-site/themes. Then add theme = 'lambda' and optional params to hugo.toml. To customize styling, override the CSS custom properties in static/css/custom.css.

FAQ

Does Lambda require a specific Hugo version?

Yes. Lambda requires Hugo v0.112.0 or later, because that version is needed for WebP image processing, which powers the theme's automatic responsive image conversion.

Is Lambda free to use?

Lambda is released under the MIT License, so it can be used and modified freely; see the LICENSE file in the repository for details.

Can I change the theme colors?

Yes. All theme styles use CSS custom properties, and you can override any of them in static/css/custom.css, including the green, orange, text, background, and border colors and the spacing scale.