gohugoio/hugo · error

invalid deployment.target.include %q: %v

Error message

invalid deployment.target.include %q: %v

What it means

During `hugo deploy` config decoding, each target's `include` pattern is compiled via `hglob.GetGlob` (github.com/gobwas/glob) in `Target.ParseIncludeExclude`; if compilation fails, the pattern string and the underlying glob error are wrapped into this error. Hugo validates globs up front so a bad pattern aborts before any files are uploaded.

Source

Thrown at deploy/deployconfig/deployConfig.go:84

	Include string
	Exclude string

	// Parsed versions of Include/Exclude.
	IncludeGlob glob.Glob `json:"-"`
	ExcludeGlob glob.Glob `json:"-"`

	// If true, any local path matching <dir>/index.html will be mapped to the
	// remote path <dir>/. This does not affect the top-level index.html file,
	// since that would result in an empty path.
	StripIndexHTML bool
}

func (tgt *Target) ParseIncludeExclude() error {
	var err error
	if tgt.Include != "" {
		tgt.IncludeGlob, err = hglob.GetGlob(tgt.Include)
		if err != nil {
			return fmt.Errorf("invalid deployment.target.include %q: %v", tgt.Include, err)
		}
	}
	if tgt.Exclude != "" {
		tgt.ExcludeGlob, err = hglob.GetGlob(tgt.Exclude)
		if err != nil {
			return fmt.Errorf("invalid deployment.target.exclude %q: %v", tgt.Exclude, err)
		}
	}
	return nil
}

// Matcher represents configuration to be applied to files whose paths match
// a specified pattern.
type Matcher struct {
	// Pattern is the string pattern to match against paths.
	// Matching is done against paths converted to use / as the path separator.
	Pattern string

View on GitHub ↗ (pinned to 8a468df065)

Solutions

1. Fix the glob syntax in the target's `include` setting — balance `{}`/`[]` groups, e.g. `"**.{html,css}"`.
2. Use glob syntax (`*`, `**`, `{a,b}`, `[abc]`), not regex — gobwas/glob is the matcher.
3. Test the pattern quickly with a small Go snippet or by re-running `hugo deploy --dryRun` after each fix.

Example fix

# before
[[deployment.targets]]
include = "**.{html,css"
# after
[[deployment.targets]]
include = "**.{html,css}"

if _, err := glob.Compile(includePattern); err != nil {
    return fmt.Errorf("bad deployment.target.include %q: %w", includePattern, err)
}

When it happens

Trigger: `hugo deploy` (or any DecodeConfig of the `deployment` section) with a target whose `include` value is an invalid gobwas/glob pattern — e.g. unbalanced `[` or `{`, like `include = "**.{html,css"`.

Common situations: Using regex syntax instead of glob syntax in the deployment config, unclosed brace/bracket groups, or copying gitignore-style patterns that aren't valid gobwas globs.

Related errors

• invalid deployment.target.exclude %q: %v
• empty deployment target
• origin must be <project>/<origin>
• unknown dimension %q
• failed to compile Headers glob %q: %w

AI-assisted analysis of gohugoio/hugo@8a468df065 (2026-07-31). Data as JSON: /data/errors/0c7753750ba8275c.json. Report an issue: GitHub ↗.