Dougie — a micro.blog theme

A versatile Hugo theme for Micro.blog-hosted sites. One theme that carries a microblog timeline, a long-form publication, or both on the same site — and reconfigures per site through the plugin settings panel, with no code changes.

The same theme drives three very different sites from one shared codebase:

• a C-level consulting publication (doughatcher.com)
• an Americana politics microblog (leaning.blue)
• a personal dev timeline (superterran.net)

No forks. Every visual and structural choice is a per-site setting.

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Features

• Two visual variants — Default (clean editorial, light) and Starfield (animated dark) — switchable per site, optionally visitor-switchable via a floating chooser.
• Two identity layouts — left sidebar rail or full-width topbar header.
• Three homepage compositions — feed, magazine, or sectioned, plus an optional featured-blog block (hero + 3 cards) at the top.
• Microblog + long-form in one — short notes render inline; titled posts get full treatment; a /blog/ section gets a featured header; a publications category powers a publications grid.
• Editorial pillars & topics — collapse blog pillars (or categories) into a single tidy Topics dropdown in the nav.
• Six accent palettes, three type pairings, light/dark mode with a toggle.
• Cross-site nav — additive sibling-site links, or a fully explicit tab override.
• Per-site About page — write the /about/ body right in plugin settings.
• Rich content — link-preview & YouTube embed cards, post thumbnails, word count / reading time.
• Share strip (LinkedIn / X / Bluesky / Reddit / HN / Email / Copy) and a consulting CTA on long-form posts.
• IndieWeb-friendly — RSS, JSON Feed, Archive, microformats, social links, optional Google Analytics.
• Responsive; min_version Hugo 0.91.

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Install

In your Micro.blog account, go to Design → Plug-ins → Install from a GitHub URL and add:

https://github.com/doughatcher/dougie-theme

Then select Dougie as your active theme, and open the plugin's settings panel to configure the site. Every setting below is per-site, so the same plugin installed on multiple sites can look completely different on each.

Already using a Micro.blog theme as well? Use only the plugin (this) — having both the theme and the plugin active can cause duplicate/competing layouts. Disable the standalone theme and keep the plugin.

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Configuration

All settings live in the Micro.blog plugin settings UI and map to .Site.Params.*. They vary independently per installed site.

Identity & branding

Setting	Type	Purpose
profile_image_url	text	Absolute URL to a circular profile photo or square brand mark. Overrides the Micro.blog account avatar.
show_avatar	bool	Show the profile image.
bio	text	One-line tagline under the site title.
show_bio	bool	Show the bio.
about_text	markdown	Body for this site's /about/ page. When set, it replaces the About page content (so each site reads differently). Blank → uses the About page you edit in Micro.blog Pages.

Layout & composition

Setting	Type	Purpose
identity_layout	text	sidebar (left rail, default) or topbar (full-width header).
home_layout	text	Homepage composition: feed, magazine, or sectioned. Default feed.
home_blog_featured	bool	Show the featured blog block (1 hero + 3 cards) at the top of the homepage — the same treatment as the /blog/ page. Auto-suppresses the bottom "From the Blog" grid so posts never duplicate.
posts_per_page	number	Timeline posts before pagination. Default 20.
accent	text	Accent palette: graphite (default), emerald, cobalt, crimson, amber, violet.
font_pairing	text	editorial (serif headlines, default), sans, or literary.
flagline	bool	Americana flag stripe accent (leaning.blue flair).

Theme variant

Setting	Type	Purpose
theme_default	text	Default variant: default or starfield.
show_theme_chooser	bool	Show the variant chooser in the floating controls so visitors can switch.

Navigation, topics & cross-links

Setting	Type	Purpose
content_nav_tabs	bool	Render nav (Blog / Publications / siblings / Topics) as tabs across the top of the content column instead of in the sidebar.
content_tabs_json	markdown (JSON)	Explicit override — a JSON array of {"name","url"} that replaces the inferred tabs. Blank → infer (Home/Blog/Publications/siblings).
sibling_links_json	markdown (JSON)	Additive cross-links to your other sites: [{"name":"superterran","url":"https://superterran.net"}]. Appended to the nav in every layout (sidebar and topbar).
hide_topics	bool	Hide the Topics list (pillars / categories) in the nav.
topics_limit	number	Cap how many topic pills show (blank = all). Useful for sites with many imported categories.

Sibling vs. content tabs: sibling_links_json appends to the nav (keep your Home/About/Archive). content_tabs_json replaces the whole inferred tab set. Use sibling links unless you want full manual control.

Sidebar blocks

Setting	Type	Purpose
show_from_the_blog	bool	"From the Blog" sidebar block.
show_publications_sidebar	bool	"Recent Publications" sidebar block.
show_footer_feeds	bool	Archive / RSS / JSON Feed links in the footer.

When a sidebar block is off, its fuller counterpart renders as a section near the bottom of the homepage instead (e.g. turn off the publications sidebar to get a "Recent Publications" grid at the foot of the homepage).

Social links

show_social_links (bool) toggles the cluster; each link is its own field: linkedin_url, bluesky_url, threads_url, mastodon_url, twitter_url, github_url, instagram_url, youtube_url, microblog_url, email_url (a mailto: prefix is added automatically).

Post features

Setting	Type	Purpose
share_strip_enabled	bool	Share row on single posts (LinkedIn / X / Bluesky / Reddit / HN / Email / Copy).
consulting_cta_enabled	bool	Show a CTA on /blog/ posts.
consulting_cta_text	markdown	CTA body copy.
consulting_cta_url	text	CTA button destination (mailto: or https://).
show_word_count	bool	Word count on long posts.
show_reading_time	bool	Reading time on long posts.
show_thumbnails	bool	Post thumbnails.
show_floating_nav	bool	Floating navigation control.
show_dark_mode_toggle	bool	Light/dark toggle (lives bottom-left of the rail / in the topbar controls).

Analytics

google_analytics_id — G-XXXXXXXXXX (GA4) or UA-XXXXXXX-X (legacy). Blank disables analytics.

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Content model

Dougie reads your existing Micro.blog content; a few conventions unlock the richer layouts:

• Microblog notes — untitled short posts render inline in the timeline as "Notes".
• Titled posts — get the full post treatment (title, meta, optional thumbnail).
• /blog/ section — posts under a blog section get the featured header (hero + 3 cards) and the consulting CTA. Add posts under that section in Micro.blog.
• Pillars — add pillar: "Some Theme" to a blog post's front matter to group it editorially. When any pillars exist, the Topics dropdown shows pillars instead of raw categories — much tidier for sites with many imported categories.
• Publications — posts in a publications category power the "Recent Publications" grid and the /categories/publications/ page. Short publication posts that link out use the external link + og:image automatically.

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Recipes

Three real configurations, as a starting point:

Consulting publication (doughatcher.com)

identity_layout = sidebar
home_layout     = feed
home_blog_featured = true
accent          = graphite
consulting_cta_enabled = true
share_strip_enabled    = true

Politics microblog (leaning.blue)

identity_layout = topbar
home_layout     = magazine
accent          = cobalt
flagline        = true
hide_topics     = true        # or topics_limit = 6
sibling_links_json = [{"name":"superterran","url":"https://superterran.net"}]

Personal dev timeline (superterran.net)

identity_layout = sidebar
home_layout     = feed
theme_default   = starfield
accent          = violet
sibling_links_json = [{"name":"leaning.blue","url":"https://leaning.blue"},{"name":"doughatcher","url":"https://doughatcher.com"}]

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Development

layouts/            Hugo templates (partials, list/single, baseof)
static/css/         dougie-system.css — the design system (accent palettes, layout)
static/themes/      per-variant overrides: default/, starfield/
plugin.json         Micro.blog plugin settings schema (the UI fields above)
theme.toml          Hugo theme metadata
images/             screenshots

The theme is fully site-agnostic — no hardcoded names, URLs, or branding. Everything comes from per-site .Site.Params.* populated by the plugin settings.

Local preview

Micro.blog hosts Hugo ~0.91, so preview with a matching version against a real content export:

hugo server --themesDir .. --theme dougie-theme

For previewing a site's real exported content through the working-tree theme (and sharing it via a Cloudflare quick tunnel), this repo's parent IaC workspace has tooling — see the microblog-sites / hugo-tunnel-preview workflows.

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Credits

Built on Micro.blog's theme-blank starting point. Maintained by Doug Hatcher.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.