Swapped the bearblog theme for PaperMod on the same day the site launched. Bearblog was fine for getting the first commit out fast, but it was too minimal — no built-in search, no dark mode, no real homepage layout options.

What changed

  • Theme: hugo-bearblog → PaperMod — gained dark/light auto-switch, JSON search, and a cleaner post list.
  • Homepage: switched to homeInfoParams with a short blurb and social icons instead of the bearblog bare index.
  • About page: added content/about.md since PaperMod’s profile mode gives it a proper layout.
  • Config: rewrote hugo.toml for PaperMod params — Dracula highlight style, auto theme, reading/share buttons off.
  • Removed the hand-rolled baseof.html that bearblog needed; PaperMod handles its own layouts.

Deployment stayed the same — Cloudflare Pages just rebuilt from the new commit and everything worked. The config diff was the biggest part; PaperMod has a lot more knobs than bearblog did.