Git Metadata

Read each content file's commit history once per build and expose it to templates and SEO outputs, like Hugo's enableGitInfo. With [git] enabled, a page that has no updated in its front matter gets one from its latest commit, so sitemap <lastmod>, feed <updated>, and JSON-LD dateModified reflect when the file really changed.

Configuration

Opt in via config.toml:

[git]
enabled = true
use_lastmod = true   # page.updated ← latest commit when front matter has none
use_date = false     # page.date ← first commit when front matter has none

Key	Type	Default	Description
enabled	bool	false	Collect git metadata for `content/` files
use_lastmod	bool	true	Set `page.updated` from the file's latest commit when front matter has no `updated`
use_date	bool	false	Set `page.date` from the file's first commit when front matter has no `date`

Front matter always wins: a fallback only fills a field the file left unset.

How It Works

The build runs one git log over content/ (never one process per page) and maps every path to its commits. On a 5,200-page test repository the whole collection step took about 50 ms.
Each page whose source file has at least one non-merge commit gets a page.git object.
use_lastmod / use_date fill the missing updated / date fields, after which everything downstream (sitemap, feeds, JSON-LD, OpenGraph, sort_by = "date") sees the git-derived value with no template changes.

hwaro serve collects history once per full rebuild, not on every file save. hwaro build --cache folds each page's commit id and timestamps into its cache key, so a warm rebuild after a new commit re-renders exactly the pages that commit touched (and the listings that show them).

Template Variable

Variable	Type	Description
page.git	Object?	`nil` when the page has no history (see below)
page.git.hash	String	Full commit id of the latest non-merge commit that touched the file
page.git.short_hash	String	First 7 characters of `hash`
page.git.lastmod	Time	Author date of that latest commit
page.git.first_commit	Time	Earliest author date across every commit that touched the file
page.git.author_name	String	Author name of the latest commit
page.git.author_email	String	Author email of the latest commit

lastmod and first_commit are real time values (the author's UTC offset is preserved), so the date filter formats them directly. The same object is available on pages iterated from listings (section.pages, site.pages, taxonomy terms).

{% if page.git %}
<p class="meta">
  Last updated {{ page.git.lastmod | date(format="%B %d, %Y") }}
  by {{ page.git.author_name }}
  (<a href="https://github.com/you/site/commit/{{ page.git.hash }}">{{ page.git.short_hash }}</a>)
</p>
{% endif %}

page.git is nil, and no fallback applies, for:

files that are not committed yet (new or untracked),
pages materialized from [[content.generate]],
generated taxonomy and listing pages,
every page when the site is not inside a git repository.

Bundles, Translations, Renames

A page bundle (posts/hello/index.md + assets) is keyed by its Markdown file, so committing only an asset does not move lastmod.
Each translation (hello.md, hello.ko.md) is its own file with its own history.
Renames are not followed: a renamed file's history restarts at the rename commit, so first_commit (and page.date under use_date) is the rename date.

Graceful Degradation

The feature never aborts a build. Each of these produces a single warning and leaves page.git unset:

Situation	Effect
No `git` binary on `PATH`	Warning; no git metadata
`content/` is not inside a repository	Warning; no git metadata
Shallow clone (`--depth N`)	Warning that `lastmod`/`first_commit` may be wrong for files older than the clone depth; metadata is still used

Most CI checkouts are shallow by default. Fetch the full history so dates are correct:

- uses: actions/checkout@v4
  with:
    fetch-depth: 0