Lekh

Lekh is a minimal, text-focused Hugo theme for building a personal portfolio site with Markdown posts, RSS, dark mode, and GoatCounter analytics.

What is Lekh?

Lekh is a static-site theme for Hugo, a Go-based static site generator. It produces a text-focused personal portfolio with a front page listing recent posts, an About section, and links to social profiles. The theme takes Markdown content as input (written as Hugo content files) and outputs a fully static HTML site that can be deployed to any web host. It is based on https://github.com/vegarsti/vegarsti.github.io and was created by the maintainer of the invinciblycool/lekh repository on GitHub.

Key Features

• Social media links — Add an array of profiles in config.toml, each with a name and URL, to display as icon/text links on the site.
• Markdown support — Write posts and the About section in Markdown; the theme renders them to HTML during the Hugo build.
• RSS feed — Hugo automatically generates an RSS feed for blog content, so readers can subscribe.
• Dark mode — The theme includes a dark mode stylesheet taken from gwern.net, a long-standing text-focused website.
• GoatCounter analytics — Set your GoatCounter code in the config to collect lightweight, privacy-respecting page-view statistics as an alternative to Google Analytics.
• Easy personalization — Copy the default config.toml from the theme's exampleSite directory to your site root and edit values like Name, About, Email, Resume, and PostLimit.
• PostLimit setting — Configure how many posts appear on the front page by setting PostLimit in the config.

Who should use Lekh?

• Developers and writers who want a clean, minimal personal site to publish thoughts and projects without visual clutter.
• Privacy-conscious bloggers who want built-in GoatCounter analytics instead of Google Analytics.
• Hugo beginners looking for a straightforward theme with a documented setup process: from Hugo installation to serving drafts.

What can you do with Lekh?

• Publish a personal blog: create Markdown posts with hugo new posts/title-of-post.md, then build and deploy the static site.
• Create a professional portfolio: use the About field to describe yourself and the profiles list to link to GitHub, Twitter, LinkedIn, or other networks.
• Host a fast, low-maintenance site: because Hugo generates static pages, the output can be hosted on Netlify, GitHub Pages, or any static host.

How does Lekh work?

The setup follows Hugo's standard workflow. First install Hugo, then create a new site with hugo new site. Add Lekh as a theme using git submodule add https://github.com/ba11b0y/lekh.git themes/lekh. Copy the example config to root, customize it, and write posts. Running hugo server -D shows drafts locally; hugo server shows only published posts.

FAQ

Is Lekh free?

Yes, Lekh is an open-source Hugo theme hosted on GitHub. You can use it for personal or commercial projects without charge.

Does Lekh support dark mode?

Yes, dark mode is included, based on the stylesheet from gwern.net. The theme switches between light and dark based on user preference or a setting in the config.

What analytics does Lekh use?

Lekh integrates GoatCounter, a privacy-friendly web analytics service. You add your GoatCounter code in the config file, and the theme includes the tracking snippet automatically.

Can I customize the content on the front page?

Yes, the front page displays your About text and a list of recent posts. Use the PostLimit setting to control how many posts appear there.

How do I deploy a site built with Lekh?

Because the output is static HTML, you can deploy it to any static hosting service, such as Netlify, GitHub Pages, or a web server. The Live Demo is hosted on Netlify.