Disqus, Utterances and Giscus comments widgets are supported out of box. This article shows how to configure them and even customize your own comment widgets.

Disqus

Disqus comments widget is supported by Hugo.

1disqusShortname = "yourdiscussshortname"

Please keep in mind that disqusShortname is a site’s configuration, not a parameter. Put it in the params won’t work.

Utterances

Utterances is a lightweight comments widget built on GitHub issues.

1[utterances]
2  repo = "user/repo"
3  #issueTerm = "pathname" # pathname, url, title, og:title.
4  #label = "comment" # Optional.
5  #theme = ""

Unlike Disqus, Utterances is a parameter. You should put it in the params.

Parameters

NameTypeDefaultDescription
utterances.repoString-GitHub repository.
utterances.issueTermStringpathnameThe mapping between blog posts and GitHub issues: pathname
utterances.labelString-The label that will be assigned to issues created by Utterances.
utterances.themeString-github-light and github-dark will be used in light and dark mode respectively if not set. Optional values: github-light, github-dark, preferred-color-scheme, github-dark-orange, icy-dark, dark-blue and photon-dark.

Troubleshooting

  • Make sure the repo is public, otherwise your readers will not be able to view the issues/comments.
  • Make sure the utterances app is installed on the repo, otherwise users will not be able to post comments.
  • If your repo is a fork, navigate to its settings tab and confirm the issues feature is turned on.

Giscus

Giscus is a lightweight comments widget built on GitHub discussions.

1[giscus]
2  repo = "user/repo"
3  repoId = ""
4  category = ""
5  categoryId = ""

Parameters

NameTypeDefaultDescription
giscus.repoString-GitHub repository. Required.
giscus.repoIdString-GitHub repository ID. Required.
giscus.categoryString-Discussions category. Required.
giscus.categoryIdString-Discussions category ID. Required.
giscus.themeString-Left it empty if you want to follow the theme mode.
giscus.mappingStringpathnameThe mapping between blog posts and GitHub discussions: pathname, url, title and og:title.
giscus.inputPositionStringtopThe input position: top or bottom.
giscus.reactionsBooleantrueTurn on/off the reactions.
giscus.metadataBooleanfalseEmit discussion metadata.
giscus.langString-Specify language, default to site language.
giscus.lazyLoadingBooleantrueEnable lazy loading.

Staticman

Staticman is also supported out of box, but it may be too complex to set it up.

Advantages

  • The comments files are stored inside your repository, that is, the comments are rendered during the site build. It maybe useful for SEO, since it doesn’t rely JS to load data dynamically, it’s truly static.
  • Handling spam: approve or reject comment via Git provider pull request, Google reCaptcha.
  • Native theme style.

Disadvantages

  • The user information are untrusted, such as email.
  • User unable to delete their comments directly, it’s able to do that via Pull Request.

Preparations

Staticman instance

Firstly, we should set up a Staticman instance for handling comments requests.

Self-Hosted Staticman instance

Please see https://staticman.net/docs/getting-started.html#step-2-deploy-staticman for details.

Public Staticman instance

I set up a public staticman instance for testing, it should works with GitHub repositories only.

You’ll need to install the GitHub App for your repo, so that the instance has access to write comments files to your repo.

  • Endpoint: https://hbs-staticman.herokuapp.com

Staticman Configuration

Secondary, we need to create the staticman.yml under your site/repository root, so that Staticman instance can read the configuration and process comments requests.

 1# Name of the property. You can have multiple properties with completely
 2# different config blocks for different sections of your site.
 3# For example, you can have one property to handle comment submission and
 4# another one to handle posts.
 5comments:
 6  # (*) REQUIRED
 7  #
 8  # Names of the fields the form is allowed to submit. If a field that is
 9  # not here is part of the request, an error will be thrown.
10  allowedFields: ["name", "email", "url", "message", "reply_to", "root_id"]
11
12  # (*) REQUIRED
13  #
14  # Name of the branch being used. Must match the one sent in the URL of the
15  # request.
16  branch: "main"
17
18  # Text to use as the commit message or pull request title. Accepts placeholders.
19  commitMessage: "Add Staticman comment"
20
21  # (*) REQUIRED
22  #
23  # Destination path (filename) for the data files. Accepts placeholders.
24  filename: "{@id}" # DO NOT MODIFY
25
26  # The format of the generated data files. Accepted values are "json", "yaml"
27  # or "frontmatter"
28  format: "yaml"
29
30  # List of fields to be populated automatically by Staticman and included in
31  # the data file. Keys are the name of the field. The value can be an object
32  # with a `type` property, which configures the generated field, or any value
33  # to be used directly (e.g. a string, number or array)
34  generatedFields:
35    date:
36      type: date
37      options:
38        format: "timestamp-seconds"
39
40  # Whether entries need to be appproved before they are published to the main
41  # branch. If set to `true`, a pull request will be created for your approval.
42  # Otherwise, entries will be published to the main branch automatically.
43  moderation: false
44
45  # Name of the site. Used in notification emails.
46  name: "hbs.razonyang.com"
47
48  # Notification settings. When enabled, users can choose to receive notifications
49  # via email when someone adds a reply or a new comment. This requires an account
50  # with Mailgun, which you can get for free at http://mailgun.com.
51  #notifications:
52    # Enable notifications
53    #enabled: true
54
55    # (!) ENCRYPTED
56    #
57    # Mailgun API key
58    #apiKey: "1q2w3e4r"
59
60    # (!) ENCRYPTED
61    #
62    # Mailgun domain (encrypted)
63    #domain: "4r3e2w1q"
64
65  # (*) REQUIRED
66  #
67  # Destination path (directory) for the data files. Accepts placeholders.
68  path: "data/{options.slug}" # DO NOT MODIFY
69
70  # Names of required fields. If any of these isn't in the request or is empty,
71  # an error will be thrown.
72  requiredFields: ["name", "message"]
73
74  # List of transformations to apply to any of the fields supplied. Keys are
75  # the name of the field and values are possible transformation types.
76  transforms:
77    email: md5 # DO NOT MODIFY, REQUIRED BY AVATAR.
78
79  reCaptcha:
80    enabled: false
81    siteKey: ""
82    secret: 

Site Parameters

Finally, tweak the following staticman parameters in params.toml.

NameTypeDefaultDescription
staticmanObject
staticman.endpointString-THe Staticman instance endpoint. Required.
staticman.repoString-Repository that with form user/repo. Required.
staticman.serviceStringgithub
staticman.branchStringmasterRepository branch.
staticman.propertyStringcomments
staticman.sortingStringascSorting comments, available options: desc.
staticman.reCaptchaKeyString-The reCaptcha site key.
staticman.reCaptchaSecretString-The reCaptcha encrypted secret. You’ll need to encrypt plain secret via https://yourstaticmaninstance/v3/encrypt/plainsecret.
staticman.extraFieldsArray-Extra fields. Available fields: url.
staticman.requiredFieldsArray-Extra required fields. Available fields: email and the extra fields. name and message are always required.
staticman.paginateInteger10The number of comments per page.
staticman.moderationBooleantrueSame as Staticman’s moderation.

reCaptcha

The reCaptcha secret is not the plain text version, you’ll need to encrypt it via your Staticman instance https://yourstaticmaninstance/v3/encrypt/PLAINSECRET.

Custom Comments Widget

We don’t intend to support all comments widgets, but don’t worry, you can customize your own comments widget.

You will need to disable the others before creating your own comments widget.

1mkdir -p layouts/partials/post/comments
2echo "MY COMMENTS WIDGET" > layouts/partials/post/comments/custom.html

In the meantime, you may need to introduce third-party assets, which can be solved by customizing assets or Hooks easily.