Build flags

Every publish builds the site first. The Build section on the Deploy page decides how – the same Hugo flags you’d type by hand, set per site and shown as the exact command line before anything runs.

The flags

On the Deploy page, per site:

• --gc – run Hugo’s garbage collection after the build, clearing stale entries from its cache.
• --minify – minify the built output.
• Environment – the build environment Hugo runs in (--environment), for config and templates that switch on it. Leave it blank for Hugo’s default.

Both flags are on by default – exactly what every HugoKit build did before this was a setting, so upgrading doesn’t change what your site builds to. The command line under the toggles updates as you change them, so you always see what will run: hugo --gc --minify, or hugo, or hugo --gc --minify --environment staging.

The environment field

The two flags are switches; the environment is the one field you type into, so it’s the one HugoKit guards. It takes letters, numbers, hyphens and underscores – a normal environment name – and rejects anything else rather than quietly cleaning it up. A value that starts with a -, or a pasted line with a space and a second command in it, is refused out loud instead of being handed to Hugo as another flag. The field says why, and the command line stays as it was.

Where it applies

Build flags belong to the site, not the target, so they carry across however you publish – a local GitHub Pages build or an FTP/SFTP upload both build with your flags on your Mac. Preflight uses the environment flag too, so the check builds against the same config the publish will.

The walkthroughs: Publishing to GitHub Pages · Publishing over SFTP.