Winning is a free, MIT-licensed Hugo theme that generates a one-page CV website from a single markdown file, with an optional Node.js script to export the result as a PDF.
What is Winning?
Winning is a one-page CV theme for Hugo, the static site generator. It takes a structured markdown file (typically _index.md) as its only content source and renders it into a clean, formatted single-page résumé. The theme is maintained on GitHub by cssandstuff, is MIT licensed, and includes a working demo at the Hugo Themes site. Its companion script generatepdf.js uses the html-pdf npm package to convert the rendered page into a PDF file.
Key Features
- Single markdown input — All CV content lives in one markdown file, _index.md, which defines the structure and sections of the résumé.
- One-page layout — The theme deliberately produces a single-page output, suited to résumés and CVs rather than multi-section websites.
- Hugo-based generation — Built as a Hugo theme, so it inherits Hugo's fast static rendering and simple deployment to any static host.
- PDF export — A provided Node.js script, generatepdf.js, uses the html-pdf package to turn the rendered CV page into a PDF document.
- Easy setup — The documented workflow clones the hugoBasicExample project, adds the theme as a submodule, and copies an example _index.md to get started.
- MIT license — Free to use, modify, and redistribute, with no licensing restrictions beyond attribution.
Who is it for?
- Job seekers and professionals — People who need a clean, single-page CV website they can host and share with recruiters.
- Hugo users — Developers already familiar with Hugo who want a minimal, code-friendly way to maintain a CV as markdown.
- Developers who want PDF output — Those who need both a web version and a print-ready PDF of their résumé, thanks to the bundled Node.js conversion script.
What can you do with Winning?
- Create a personal CV site — Write your experience, education, and skills in markdown and generate a static one-page website for your personal domain.
- Export a PDF résumé — After installing html-pdf globally via npm, run
node ./generatepdf.jsto produce a PDF of the same CV, useful for job applications. - Host it for free — Because Hugo outputs static HTML, the resulting site can be deployed to GitHub Pages, Netlify, or any static file host without a backend.
How does Winning work?
The theme works with the standard Hugo workflow: you clone the hugoBasicExample repository, clone Winning into the themes/winning directory, then copy the example _index.md into your content folder. Running HUGO_THEME=winning hugo server serves the CV locally; to generate a PDF, you also install the html-pdf package globally and run the generatepdf.js script.
