# Hugo builds fine, but the page is blank
> Hugo says "found no layout file" and writes an empty page. Nothing is broken – Hugo just has no template for that kind of page, and the fix is one file with the right name.
Section: Fixing common Hugo problems
Source: https://hugokit.com/docs/hugo-found-no-layout-file/
Updated: 2026-07-21
---
The build succeeds. The server starts. And the page in the browser is empty – no error, no content, nothing to click. Somewhere in the log:
```
WARN found no layout file for "html" for kind "home"
```
The exact wording moves around between Hugo versions, but the shape is always the same: *kind* and *no layout file*.
## Why
Hugo doesn't render Markdown to HTML on its own. It hands each page to a template, and the template decides what the HTML looks like. If it can't find a template for a page, it doesn't guess and it doesn't fail – it writes the page with nothing in it and moves on.
*Kind* is the word Hugo uses for what sort of page it is. There are five you'll meet:
| Kind | What it is |
| --- | --- |
| `home` | the front page |
| `page` | a normal content page |
| `section` | the listing page for a folder, like `/posts/` |
| `taxonomy` | the list of all tags |
| `term` | one tag's page |
Each kind is looked up separately. That's why a site can render its blog posts perfectly and still hand you a blank front page: `page` had a template, `home` didn't.
## The fix
Give the kind a template. In `layouts/`:
```
layouts/
├── baseof.html ← the shell every page is poured into
├── home.html ← kind: home
├── page.html ← kind: page
└── section.html ← kind: section
```
`baseof.html` holds the ``, the `` and whatever wraps every page, with a hole in the middle:
```go-html-template
{{ .Title }}
{{ block "main" . }}{{ end }}
```
And each kind fills the hole. `layouts/page.html`:
```go-html-template
{{ define "main" }}
{{ .Title }}
{{ .Content }}
{{ end }}
```
`layouts/home.html` and `layouts/section.html` usually list pages instead:
```go-html-template
{{ define "main" }}
{{ range .Pages }}
{{ end }}
{{ end }}
```
That's the whole mechanism. A template per kind, one shell around them.
## If you're using a theme
Then the theme has these templates already, and a blank page usually means Hugo isn't finding the theme at all:
- Is `theme = "your-theme"` in the config, spelled exactly like the folder in `themes/`?
- Is `themes/your-theme/` actually there, with files in it? A theme added as a Git submodule is an empty folder until the submodule is fetched.
- Is `theme` really at the top level of the config – or did it slide under a `[params]` header? See [Hugo ignores a setting in hugo.toml](/docs/hugo-config-setting-ignored/).
## The trap: a taxonomy you never asked for
Define your own taxonomies and Hugo drops the built-in ones. This config quietly removes tags and categories from your site:
```toml
[taxonomies]
author = "authors"
```
Because you named the taxonomies, and `tag` and `category` weren't on the list. If you wanted to *add* one, name all three:
```toml
[taxonomies]
author = "authors"
tag = "tags"
category = "categories"
```
> HugoKit's preflight reads this warning out of the build log and offers to write the missing templates for you – it checks which kinds have no template, and generates them as `{{ define "main" }}` blocks if your `baseof.html` exists, or as standalone pages if it doesn't. The taxonomy trap is a separate check: HugoKit notices when `[taxonomies]` is defined without `tag` and `category` and offers to add them back. Both fixes are shown as a diff before anything is written. See [Preflight](/docs/preflight/).
---
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