You can modify site settings in _config.yml or in an alternate config file.

Site

Setting	Description
title	The title of your website
subtitle	The subtitle of your website
description	The description of your website
keywords	The keywords of your website. Supports multiple values.
author	Your name
language	The language of your website. Use a 2-letter ISO-639-1 code or optionally its variant. Default is en.
timezone	The timezone of your website. Hexo uses the setting on your computer by default. You can find the list of available timezones here. Some examples are America/New_York, Japan, and UTC.

URL

Setting	Description	Default
url	The URL of your website, must starts with http:// or https://
root	The root directory of your website	url's pathname
permalink	The permalink format of articles	:year/:month/:day/:title/
permalink_defaults	Default values of each segment in permalink
pretty_urls	Rewrite the permalink variables to pretty URLs
pretty_urls.trailing_index	Trailing index.html, set to false to remove it	true
pretty_urls.trailing_html	Trailing .html, set to false to remove it (does not apply to trailing index.html)	true

Examples:

# e.g. page.permalink is http://example.com/foo/bar/index.html
pretty_urls:
  trailing_index: false
# becomes http://example.com/foo/bar/

Directory

Setting	Description	Default
source_dir	Source folder. Where your content is stored	source
public_dir	Public folder. Where the static site will be generated	public
tag_dir	Tag directory	tags
archive_dir	Archive directory	archives
category_dir	Category directory	categories
code_dir	Include code directory (subdirectory of source_dir)	downloads/code
i18n_dir	i18n directory	:lang
skip_render	Paths that will be copied to public raw, without being rendered. You can use glob expressions for path matching.

Examples:

skip_render: "mypage/**/*"
# will output `source/mypage/index.html` and `source/mypage/code.js` without altering them.

## This also can be used to exclude posts,
skip_render: "_posts/test-post.md"
# will ignore the `source/_posts/test-post.md`.

Writing

Setting	Description	Default
new_post_name	The filename format for new posts	:title.md
default_layout	Default layout	post
titlecase	Transform titles into title case?	false
external_link	Open external links in a new tab?
external_link.enable	Open external links in a new tab?	true
external_link.field	Applies to the whole site or post only	site
external_link.exclude	Exclude hostname. Specify subdomain when applicable, including www	[]
filename_case	Transform filenames to 1 lower case; 2 upper case	0
render_drafts	Display drafts?	false
post_asset_folder	Enable the Asset Folder?	false
relative_link	Make links relative to the root folder?	false
future	Display future posts?	true
highlight	Code block syntax highlight settings, see Highlight.js section for usage guide
prismjs	Code block syntax highlight settings, see PrismJS section for usage guide

Home page setting

Setting	Description	Default
index_generator	Generate an archive of posts, powered by hexo-generator-index
index_generator.path	Root path for your blog’s index page	''
index_generator.per_page	Posts displayed per page.	10
index_generator.order_by	Posts order. Order by descending date (new to old) by default.	-date
index_generator.pagination_dir	URL format, see Pagination setting below	page

Category & Tag

Setting	Description	Default
default_category	Default category	uncategorized
category_map	Category slugs
tag_map	Tag slugs

Date / Time format

Hexo uses Moment.js to process dates.

Setting	Description	Default
date_format	Date format	YYYY-MM-DD
time_format	Time format	HH:mm:ss
updated_option	The updated value to used when not provided in the front-matter	mtime

updated_option controls the updated value when not provided in the front-matter:

• mtime: Use file modification date as updated. It is the default behavior of Hexo since 3.0.0
• date: Use date as updated. Typically used with Git workflow when file modification date could be different.
• empty: Simply drop updated when not provided. May not be compatible with most themes and plugins.

use_date_for_updated is deprecated and will be removed in next major version. Please use updated_option: 'date' instead.

Pagination

Setting	Description	Default
per_page	Number of posts displayed on each page. 0 disables pagination	10
pagination_dir	URL format	page

Examples:

pagination_dir: 'page'
# http://example.com/page/2

pagination_dir: 'awesome-page'
# http://example.com/awesome-page/2

Extensions

Setting	Description
theme	Theme name. false disables theming
theme_config	Theme configuration. Include any custom theme settings under this key to override theme defaults.
deploy	Deployment settings
meta_generator	Meta generator tag. false disables injection of the tag.

Include/Exclude Files or Folders

Use the following options to explicitly process or ignore certain files/folders. Support glob expressions for path matching.

include and exclude options only apply to the source/ folder, whereas ignore option applies to all folders.

Setting	Description
include	Include hidden files (including files/folders with a name that start with an underscore, with an exception*)
exclude	Exclude files/folders
ignore	Ignore files/folders

Examples:

# Include/Exclude Files/Folders
include:
  - ".nojekyll"
  # Include 'source/css/_typing.css'.
  - "css/_typing.css"
  # Include any file in 'source/_css/'.
  - "_css/*"
  # Include any file and subfolder in 'source/_css/'.
  - "_css/**/*"

exclude:
  # Exclude 'source/js/test.js'.
  - "js/test.js"
  # Exclude any file in 'source/js/'.
  - "js/*"
  # Exclude any file and subfolder in 'source/js/'.
  - "js/**/*"
  # Exclude any file with filename that starts with 'test' in 'source/js/'.
  - "js/test*"
  # Exclude any file with filename that starts with 'test' in 'source/js/' and its subfolders.
  - "js/**/test*"
  # Do not use this to exclude posts in the 'source/_posts/'.
  # Use skip_render for that. Or prepend an underscore to the filename.
  # - "_posts/hello-world.md" # Does not work.

ignore:
  # Ignore any folder named 'foo'.
  - "**/foo"
  # Ignore 'foo' folder in 'themes/' only.
  - "**/themes/*/foo"
  # Same as above, but applies to every subfolders of 'themes/'.
  - "**/themes/**/foo"

Each value in the list must be enclosed with single/double quotes.

include: and exclude: do not apply to the themes/ folder. Either use ignore: or alternatively, prepend an underscore to the file/folder name to exclude.

* Notable exception is the source/_posts folder, but any file or folder with a name that starts with an underscore under that folder would still be ignored. Using include: rule in that folder is not recommended.

Using an Alternate Config

A custom config file path can be specified by adding the --config flag to your hexo commands with a path to an alternate YAML or JSON config file, or a comma-separated list (no spaces) of multiple YAML or JSON files.

# use 'custom.yml' in place of '_config.yml'
$ hexo server --config custom.yml

# use 'custom.yml' & 'custom2.json', prioritizing 'custom2.json'
$ hexo server --config custom.yml,custom2.json

Using multiple files combines all the config files and saves the merged settings to _multiconfig.yml. The later values take precedence. It works with any number of JSON and YAML files with arbitrarily deep objects. Note that no spaces are allowed in the list.

For instance, in the above example if foo: bar is in custom.yml, but "foo": "dinosaur" is in custom2.json, _multiconfig.yml will contain foo: dinosaur.

Alternate Theme Config

Hexo themes are independent projects, with separate _config.yml files.

Instead of forking a theme, and maintaining a custom version with your settings, you can configure it from somewhere else:

from theme_config in site’s primary configuration file

Supported since Hexo 2.8.2

# _config.yml
theme: "my-theme"
theme_config:
  bio: "My awesome bio"
  foo:
    bar: 'a'

# themes/my-theme/_config.yml
bio: "Some generic bio"
logo: "a-cool-image.png"
  foo:
    baz: 'b'

Resulting in theme configuration:

{
  bio: "My awesome bio",
  logo: "a-cool-image.png",
  foo: {
    bar: "a",
    baz: "b"
  }
}

from a dedicated _config.[theme].yml file

Supported since Hexo 5.0.0

The file should be placed in your site folder, both yml and json are supported. theme inside _config.yml must be configured for Hexo to read _config.[theme].yml

# _config.yml
theme: "my-theme"

# _config.my-theme.yml
bio: "My awesome bio"
foo:
  bar: 'a'

# themes/my-theme/_config.yml
bio: "Some generic bio"
logo: "a-cool-image.png"
  foo:
    baz: 'b'

Resulting in theme configuration:

{
  bio: "My awesome bio",
  logo: "a-cool-image.png",
  foo: {
    bar: "a",
    baz: "b"
  }
}

We strongly recommend you to store your theme configuration in one place. But in case you have to store your theme configuration separately, you need to know the priority of those configurations: The theme_config inside site’s primary configuration file has the highest priority during merging, then the dedicated theme configuration file.
The _config.yml file under the theme directory has the lowest priority.