Monospace font and terminal-style design, using JetBrains Mono, IBM Plex Mono, Fira Code, with Nord-style colors and full dark mode
HugoStarter
kavu — Hugo Starter Template
By stultus
Kavu is a Hugo theme for digital gardens and personal knowledge bases, using monospace fonts and a terminal style, with note maturity stages, backlinks, and an interactive network graph.
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Recorded 2026-10-04View source
What stands out
A quick read of the recorded project description.
Distinguishes three note maturity stages—seeding, growing, evergreen—via the frontmatter status field
Note pages automatically generate backlinks with summaries and support random note navigation
Interactive force-directed network graph with search, hover highlighting of neighbors, label avoidance, zoom, fit view, fullscreen, and keyboard shortcuts
Tag system includes a tag cloud, a tags page sortable by Recent / A-Z / Status, and related tags based on co-occurrence
Supports Wikilink-style [[bracket]] internal link rendering and the Malayalam font (Manjari)
Template Details
Kavu is a Hugo theme positioned as a presentation layer for digital gardens and personal knowledge bases. It originates from paulmartins/hugo-digital-garden-theme and was subsequently extensively rewritten to form a new design system, homepage, note pages, tag system, network graph, and CSS architecture. The theme name comes from the sacred groves of Kerala (കാവ്).
In terms of content organization, the theme distinguishes note maturity stages via the frontmatter status field: seeding (draft or rough idea), growing (draft with initial development and partial links), evergreen (polished, well-linked, stable understanding). Note pages provide an inline metadata bar (maturity, date, reading time), a summary subtitle, tag pills, automatic backlinks with summaries, and random note navigation. The homepage provides garden statistics, recently updated and most-connected entries, collapsible cards for browsing by topic, a filterable and sortable full note index, a random note button, and an interactive network graph that is searchable, highlights on hover, and supports fullscreen.
The tag system includes a tag cloud with note counts, a tags page sortable by Recent / A-Z / Status, and related tag discovery based on co-occurrence. The network graph is a force-directed graph of all notes and their connections; hovering highlights nodes and neighbors and displays labels, with label avoidance, and supports search, zoom, fit view, and fullscreen, with keyboard shortcuts such as / for search, F for fit, Shift+F for fullscreen, and +/- for zoom.
Design-wise, it uses monospace fonts (JetBrains Mono, IBM Plex Mono, Fira Code), Nord-inspired CSS variable colors, full dark mode, responsive layout, Wikilink-style [[bracket]] internal link rendering, and support for the Malayalam font (Manjari).
Usage limitations: internal links must use absolute paths (e.g., /notes/note-slug/) to ensure the theme's link parser works correctly; the theme by default renders a "Built with Kavu by stultus" credit line in the footer, which can be disabled via params.hideThemeCredit in hugo.toml. The repository uses the MIT license, and the free scope covers the code of this version; third-party assets such as demo images, fonts, and icons must be checked against their respective licenses.
HugoStarter
Is it right for your project?
Use Cases
- Building a personal digital garden centered on interlinked notes
- Organizing and publishing a personal knowledge base with maturity markers
- Visually browsing connections between notes using the network graph
- Browsing and filtering the note index by topic, tag, or status
Suitable For
- Users building sites with Hugo
- Writers organizing content with notes and bidirectional links
- Developers who want to present a digital garden in a terminal style
- Knowledge management scenarios requiring a tag system and note maturity markers
Getting started & customization
Use these recorded setup notes alongside the repository instructions for your chosen version.
- 1
Add the theme to themes/kavu as a git submodule, and set theme = "kavu" and themesdir = "./themes" in hugo.toml
- 2
Note frontmatter must include title, date, lastmod, draft, tags, summary, status (seeding | growing | evergreen), and type (note | essay | moc | source)
- 3
Use absolute paths for internal links (e.g., /notes/note-slug/) to ensure the theme's link parser works correctly
- 4
The theme by default displays "Built with Kavu by stultus" in the footer; this can be disabled by setting hideThemeCredit = true in [params] in hugo.toml
License & source material
Usage conditions & limitations
Free to use · keep license noticeThis entry covers the free version under the MIT license in the public repository; the free scope covers the code of this version and does not imply that external services or third-party assets are free.
Must comply with when using
- Free use, modification, commercial use, and distribution of this version's code are permitted.
- When distributing copies or substantial portions of the code, retain the original author's copyright notice and the full MIT license notice.
- The code is provided as is; warranties and limitations of liability are governed by the original license and applicable law.
Additional costs & items to verify
- Internal links must use absolute paths (e.g., /notes/note-slug/), otherwise the theme's link parser will not work correctly.
- The theme by default renders a "Built with Kavu by stultus" credit in the footer; this can be disabled by setting params.hideThemeCredit = true in hugo.toml, and retaining the credit is encouraged but not mandatory.
- Demo images, fonts, icons, and other third-party assets must be checked against their respective licenses and cannot be judged solely by the code's MIT license.
- External services such as domains, hosting, databases, payments, or AI may incur additional charges.
View Original Text Basis
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge
Original License Text
Use absolute paths for internal links to ensure the theme's link resolver works correctly
Original README
https://github.com/stultus/kavu/blob/main/LICENSEhttps://github.com/stultus/kavu/blob/main/README.mdKavu renders a small "Built with Kavu by stultus" line in the footer by default. If you'd rather not include it, set in your `hugo.toml`:
Original README
Compiled by DeepSeek based on repository license and README ·2026-10-04. Results only cover the materials read; dependencies, images, fonts, and subsequent term changes are subject to their respective original texts.
Project checks & description sources
Template Information
- Source platforms
- Hugo Themes
- Documentation and maintenance reference score
- More documented · 83 / 100
- Technologies
- Hugo
- Website type
- Starter
How this score is calculated
Our heuristic uses license records (up to 30), a demo link (12), a preview (10), stars (15), recorded maintenance (15), description completeness (8), feature records (5) and classification data (5). It is not a code, security or performance test, or a Google score. A link does not establish tested functionality.
What to verify for this project
- Repository update recorded
- 2026-05-05
- Screenshot last checked
- 2026-10-04
A demo link is listed. Check it with your own content and viewport sizes; its presence does not confirm that forms, authentication or payments work.
The catalog identifies Hugo as the primary stack. Check the actual dependency manifest and lockfile for versions and hosting requirements. These notes use recorded metadata, not a code audit or a deployment test.
Use a selection guide →How this description was prepared
AI-assisted description based on catalog records and repository material. Repository authors are not automatically the reviewers of this description.
Review declaration: [email protected] · 2026-10-04
Inspect the recorded source material
SHA-256: 0ed151c51fb4ae655b8c95d7d3d224bcf4a392287d7220d14baf339f78ea53b8
2026-10-04T02:47:22.092Z
Source file / repository<p align="center"> <img src="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/stultus/kavu/main/images/kavu-cover.png" alt="Kavu — A digital garden for Hugo" width="320" /> </p> # Kavu > Named after the കാവ് (kavu), the sacred groves of Kerala: small, protected, deliberately overgrown. A monospace, terminal-inspired Hugo theme for digital gardens and personal knowledge bases. Designed around the principles of interconnected note-taking, with support for note maturity stages, network graph visualization, and dense cross-linking. **Live site**: [stultus.in/notes](https://stultus.in/notes/) ## Preview Homepage — dark and light: | Dark | Light | | :---: | :---: | |  |  | Network graph — force-directed view of all notes coloured by maturity: | Dark | Light | | :---: | :---: | |  |  | Browse-by-topic and the full note index: | Dark | Light | | :---: | :---: | |  |  | ## Features **Homepage** - Live garden statistics (total notes, evergreen/growing/seedling counts) - Recently Tended and Most Connected entry points - Collapsible topic cards for browsing by theme - Filterable and sortable full note index - Random note discovery button - Interactive network graph with search, hover highlighting, and fullscreen mode **Note Pages** - Inline metadata bar: maturity status, dates, reading time - Summary subtitle and tag pills - Automatic backlinks with summaries - Random note navigation **Tag System** - Tag cloud with note counts - Sortable tag pages (Recent / A-Z / Status) - Related tags discovery based on co-occurrence **Network Graph** - Force-directed graph of all notes and their connections - Hover to highlight a node and its neighbors with labels - Label collision avoidance - Search, zoom, fit-to-view, and fullscreen controls - Keyboard shortcuts: `/` search, `F` fit, `Shift+F` fullscreen, `+`/`-` zoom **Design** - Monospace typography (JetBrains Mono, IBM Plex Mono, Fira Code) - Nord-inspired color palette with CSS variables - Full dark mode support - Responsive layout - Wikilink-style `[[bracket]]` rendering for internal links - Malayalam font support (Manjari) ## Note Maturity Notes use a `status` frontmatter field to indicate maturity: | Status | Meaning | |--------|---------| | `seeding` | Stub or rough idea | | `growing` | Developed draft, partially linked | | `evergreen` | Polished, well-linked, stable understanding | ## Getting Started ```bash # Add as a submodule git submodule add [email protected]:stultus/kavu.git themes/kavu ``` Set in `hugo.toml`: ```toml theme = "kavu" themesdir = "./themes" ``` ### Frontmatter ```yaml --- title: "Your Note Title" date: 2025-01-01 lastmod: 2025-01-15 draft: false tags: ["topic-a", "topic-b"] summary: "One-line description of the note." status: "seeding" # seeding | growing | evergreen type: "note" # note | essay | moc | source --- ``` ### Internal Links Use absolute paths for internal links to ensure the theme's link resolver works correctly: ```markdown [Note Title](/notes/note-slug/) ``` ## Theme credit Kavu renders a small "Built with Kavu by stultus" line in the footer by default. If you'd rather not include it, set in your `hugo.toml`: ```toml [params] hideThemeCredit = true ``` Keeping it on is appreciated — it helps other people find the theme. ## Origin Kavu was originally forked from [paulmartins/hugo-digital-garden-theme](https://github.com/paulmartins/hugo-digital-garden-theme), which was inspired by [Maggie Appleton's website](https://maggieappleton.com/). It has since been substantially rewritten with a new design system, homepage, note pages, tag system, network graph, and CSS architecture. ## License MIT
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