Make default baseUrl https://example.org/ and the config optional

[bep]

If I want to create a very basic site, the only reason I currently need to create a config file is to set the baseUrl.

So, having the baseURL default to https://example.org/ would be a slightly breaking change, but it would solve more issues than it introduces.

[jmooring]

Today we internally set baseURL = "/" when baseURL is undefined or when baseURL = "".

After the proposed change, will I still be able to explicitly set baseURL = "/"? This configuration is required for server-less sites.

The proposed change will break server-less where baseURL is undefined or where baseURL = "". Server-less sites are uncommon, and those that I have encountered explicitly set baseURL = "/", so the breakage should be minimal.

For all other sites, if their baseURL is currently undefined or set to "", their sitemaps (and other meta data) are already broken; they just don't know it.

[bep]

The proposed change will break server-less where baseURL is undefined or where baseURL = "".

The above is the reason we haven't done this. People should still be able to set baseURL to "/" or whatever they want, but us defaulting to a invalid URL value if not set (no protocol, for starters) does not make much sense to me.

I will let this issue sit in the proposal state for a while, but there are 3 reasons why we want to do this:

• To make the default config valid.
• To enable us to do config-less setups (this is not the most important part, I guess, but it would be useful to be able to just create a layout file and start the server).
• To avoid a common confusion when people start their dev server and see this:

Built in 92 ms
Environment: "development"
Serving pages from disk
Running in Fast Render Mode. For full rebuilds on change: hugo server --disableFastRender
Web Server is available at //localhost:1313/ (bind address 127.0.0.1)
Press Ctrl+C to stop

[victoriahughes497-max]

This works for me now after the fix

…

On Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 5:39 PM Bjørn Erik Pedersen ***@***.***> wrote: *bep* left a comment (gohugoio/hugo#14625) <#14625 (comment)> The proposed change will break server-less where baseURL is undefined or where baseURL = "". The above is the reason we haven't done this. People should still be able to set baseURL to "/" or whatever they want, but us defaulting to a invalid URL value if not set (no protocol, for starters) does not make much sense to me. I will let this issue sit in the proposal state for a while, but there are 3 reasons why we want to do this: - To make the default config valid. - To enable us to do config-less setups (this is not the most important part, I guess, but it would be useful to be able to just create a layout file and start the server). - To avoid a common confusion when people start their dev server and see this: Built in 92 ms Environment: "development" Serving pages from disk Running in Fast Render Mode. For full rebuilds on change: hugo server --disableFastRender Web Server is available at //localhost:1313/ (bind address 127.0.0.1) Press Ctrl+C to stop — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#14625 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/B72GTPZNQCTWP6LXXDEW5ZT4RA337AVCNFSM6AAAAACWSELN5SVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHM2DANRZGQ2TSNZRG4> . You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>