Hugo Site Setup using Up Business Theme

✅ Prerequisites

Make sure you have the following installed:

Hugo (extended version)

Always update your packages before an install.

sudo apt update

Download and install the extended version of Hugo

wget https://github.com/gohugoio/hugo/releases/download/v0.147.9/hugo_extended_0.147.9_linux-amd64.deb
sudo apt install ./hugo_extended_0.147.9_linux-amd64.deb

Git

sudo apt update
sudo apt install git

Configure Git:

git config --global user.name "Your Name"
git config --global user.email "your@example.com"

Node.js and npm

Instead of using apt, which installs outdated versions, use NodeSource to install the current LTS version (more stable for dev work):

# Add NodeSource repository for Node 20 (LTS as of mid-2025)
curl -fsSL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_20.x | sudo -E bash -
sudo apt-get install -y nodejs

This installs both node and npm.

Verify Installation

node -v
npm -v

From your project root

npm install

🚀 Create and Set Up the Site

# Create new site

git clone --branch demo https://github.com/writeonlycode/hugo-up-business.git aptxlabs
cd aptxlabs

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Run locally
hugo server

You should now be able to view the site at http://localhost:1313/.

🛠 Set Up GitHub Repository

Create a new repository under your GitHub organization:
👉 https://github.com/aptxlabs/aptxlabs
Enable GitHub Pages:
- Go to Settings → Pages
- Under Build and Deployment, set Source to GitHub Actions

Initialize Git in your Hugo site directory:

cd aptxlabs
git init
git remote add origin https://github.com/aptxlabs/aptxlabs.git

Rename the default branch to main (if needed):
```
git branch -m main
```

Update the remote URL

git remote set-url origin https://github.com/aptxlabs/aptxlabs.git

Confirm the change

git remote -v

It should now show

origin  https://github.com/aptxlabs/aptxlabs.git (fetch)
origin  https://github.com/aptxlabs/aptxlabs.git (push)

Add, commit, and push the source code:

git add .
git commit -m "Initial commit with Hugo site source"
git push -u origin main

⚙️ GitHub Actions: Automatic Deployment

Ensure the project already includes .github/workflows/deploy.yml (present in demo branch).
Update the hugo.yaml file:

config > _default > hugo.yaml

baseURL: "https://aptxlabs.github.io/aptxlabs/"

Update the deploy.yml build command:

.gitHub > workflows > deploy.yml

# Replace this:
hugo --minify --baseURL "${ steps.pages.outputs.base_url }/"

# With this:
hugo --minify

# Replace this:
push:
    branches: ["demo"]

# With this: 
push:
    branches: ["main"]

Push the changes:

git add hugo.yaml .github/workflows/deploy.yml
git commit -m "Fix baseURL and deploy config for GitHub Pages"
git push

🔐 Environment Permissions

Go to: Settings → Environments → github-pages (in the GitHub repo)
Under Deployment branches, add main so GitHub Actions can deploy from it.
Run the commit from VS Code.

🌍 Live Website

Your site is now live at:

👉 Aptxlabs

The site was initially deployed to GitHub Pages at https://aptxlabs.github.io/aptxlabs/, and has since been moved to the custom domain using the following steps:

DNS Configuration:
- Added the following A records to point the apex domain (aptxlabs.com) to GitHub Pages:
```
185.199.108.153
185.199.109.153
185.199.110.153
185.199.111.153
```
- Added a CNAME record to point www.aptxlabs.com to:
```
aptxlabs.github.io
```
GitHub Pages Settings:
- Set the Custom domain to aptxlabs.com
- Enabled Enforce HTTPS
Hugo Configuration:
- Updated the baseURL in config/_default/hugo.yaml to:
```
baseURL: "https://aptxlabs.com/"
```

Once DNS propagation completed, the site became accessible via the custom domain over HTTPS with all resources loading correctly.

🛡️ Securing the Website Against External Dependency Failures

After setting up and deploying the Hugo site using the Up Business theme, we implemented an important improvement to ensure long-term stability and independence from the original theme developer.

✅ What We Did

We vendored the theme using Hugo Modules, meaning we pulled the full theme source code into our project under a local _vendor/ directory using the command:

hugo mod vendor

We then added vendored: true under module: to the root-level hugo.yaml configuration (since we have two of those files in the repo) to tell Hugo to use the local vendored copy:

module:
  hugo_version:
    min: "0.147.8"
  
  vendored: true

  imports:
    - path: github.com/writeonlycode/hugo-up-business

Finally, we committed the entire _vendor/ folder to our Git repository to make the site self-contained.

🧠 Why We Did It

By default, Hugo Modules (including themes) are fetched from external Git repositories during the build process. This introduces a dependency on the availability and stability of those upstream sources.

Even though we were using a pinned version of the theme (via go.mod), edge cases remained where:

The theme repo could be deleted from Github
GitHub or the Go proxy could be temporarily unavailable
A clean machine or CI runner might not be able to fetch the module

✅ Benefits of Vendoring

By vendoring the theme:

✅ We removed all reliance on the upstream Git repo
✅ The site now builds and runs fully offline
✅ We’re protected from theme updates or deletions
✅ CI/CD and production builds are isolated and reproducible
✅ Even with go.mod and go.sum deleted, the site continues to work — proving that _vendor/ is truly self-sufficient

This makes the website future-proof and ensures that it will continue working exactly as expected — even years from now, regardless of what happens to the original theme project.

🧪 How We Verified It

We ran the following test:

Deleted go.mod and go.sum
```
rm go.mod go.sum
```

Cleared all Hugo and Go caches:

rm -rf ~/.cache/hugo
rm -rf ~/.cache/go-build
go clean -modcache

Deleted public/, resources/, and .hugo_build.lock
```
rm -rf public/ resources/ .hugo_build.lock
```
Disconnected from the internet
```
ping google.com
```
Ran:
```
hugo server
```

✅ The site built and served correctly, confirming that all required code and assets were available locally in _vendor/.

🤩 Final Thoughts

This step isn’t mandatory for every Hugo project, but it’s highly recommended for:

Production deployments
Long-term archival
Projects where upstream stability is a concern

By vendoring, we’ve eliminated a potential point of failure and taken full ownership of our project stack — making the website truly future-proof.

✅ Prerequisites#

Hugo (extended version)#

Git#

Node.js and npm#

🚀 Create and Set Up the Site#

🛠 Set Up GitHub Repository#

⚙️ GitHub Actions: Automatic Deployment#

🔐 Environment Permissions#

🌍 Live Website#

🛡️ Securing the Website Against External Dependency Failures#

✅ What We Did#

🧠 Why We Did It#

✅ Benefits of Vendoring#

🧪 How We Verified It#

🤩 Final Thoughts#