HugoBlox exists to make academic publishing free, beautiful, and effortless — for every researcher on earth.
We power 100,000+ researcher websites, research lab sites, and university project pages worldwide. Behind each one is a scientist, student, or lab trying to share their work. Behind HugoBlox is a community of contributors who made that possible.
Note
Love HugoBlox? If it's helped you publish your research, launch your lab site, or build your academic presence — every contribution you make passes that forward to the next researcher who needs it. You're not just improving a tool. You're advancing open research.
- Advance open research — keep essential academic tools free and accessible worldwide
- Shape what millions of researchers use — your changes land in sites across hundreds of universities
- Be part of something bigger — HugoBlox is infrastructure for open science, not just a website builder
- Add it to your CV — open source contributions signal collaboration, craft, and initiative
- Build your public reputation — every contribution is permanently credited and visible
- Level up with modern tech — Hugo, Tailwind CSS v4, Preact, Go, and more
- Network globally — connect with researchers, developers, and academics worldwide
Not every contribution requires code. Pick whatever fits your time:
| Time | Action |
|---|---|
| 30 sec | ⭐ Star the repo — helps more researchers discover HugoBlox |
| 30 sec | 👍 Upvote a feature you need |
| 5 min | 🐛 Report a bug with clear steps to reproduce |
| 5 min | 💬 Answer a question in Discord |
| 5 min | ✏️ Fix a documentation typo — hit Edit on any docs page |
| 1 hr | 🔧 Pick a help wanted issue |
| few hrs | 🧩 Contribute a significant feature or new block |
| ongoing | 🎥 Create YouTube tutorials or blog posts |
Important
All technical documentation — commands, architecture, code conventions, commit message standards, and how to build blocks — lives in AGENTS.md. That file is the single source of truth for both human contributors and AI agents working in this repo.
TL;DR:
# 1. Install: Hugo Extended, Node.js, pnpm
# 2. Clone and install deps
pnpm install
# 3. Start the dev server for a starter site
pnpm dev academic-cv # opens at http://localhost:8081See AGENTS.md for the full guide: architecture, all commands, code standards, commit conventions, block creation, and schemas.
- Fix a bug — see open issues
- Build a new block — see the block guide in AGENTS.md
- Contribute a shortcode
- Contribute a language pack — place in
modules/blox/i18n/and add metadata tomodules/blox/data/languages.yaml - Contribute a theme pack — color and font themes
- Contribute a template — duplicate the Link In Bio template as a starting point, then reach out on Discord
Note
To contribute to a template, make changes inside templates/ in this monorepo. Do not submit PRs to the dedicated template repositories — they are read-only and changes propagate there automatically.
- Improve the documentation — open a GitHub Issue with your suggested changes
- Write tutorials or blog posts
- Create YouTube walkthroughs
- Search first — check issues and PRs to avoid duplicate work
- Open an issue first for significant new features — discuss design before building
- Test locally —
pnpm dev academic-cvbefore submitting - Run quality checks —
pnpm code:fix && pnpm style:fix && pnpm format - Write a clear commit message — see commit conventions in AGENTS.md
Tip
For a simple bug fix or typo? Just open a PR directly — no issue needed.
- Discord #contributing — real-time help
- GitHub Discussions — async Q&A and show-and-tell
- GitHub Issues — bugs and feature requests
When reporting a bug, include: Hugo version, HugoBlox version (from go.mod), OS, and browser — plus the smallest example that reproduces it.
Contributors are:
- Named in release notes
- Featured on our social media
- Visible on the contributors page
- Get Pro — enhance your productivity with automations whilst supporting HugoBlox
- GitHub Sponsors — monthly support for open source development
- ☕ Buy a coffee
- 📢 Share your site on X/LinkedIn/Reddit with
#HugoBlox
By submitting a Pull Request, you agree to our CLA. In short: you keep ownership of your code; we get a permanent license to use it as part of HugoBlox. This is standard practice in professional open source and protects both you and the project.
Questions? Join our Discord or start a Discussion.
This project follows the Contributor Covenant Code of Conduct.