gohugoio/hugo · error

no deployment targets found

Error message

no deployment targets found

What it means

Raised in deploy.New (deploy/deploy.go:82) when the decoded deployment config has zero `[[deployment.targets]]` entries. `hugo deploy` cannot do anything without at least one target bucket/URL, so the Deployer constructor fails immediately.

Source

Thrown at deploy/deploy.go:82

	target *deployconfig.Target // the target to deploy to

	// For tests...
	summary deploySummary // summary of latest Deploy results
}

type deploySummary struct {
	NumLocal, NumRemote, NumUploads, NumDeletes int
}

const metaMD5Hash = "md5chksum" // the meta key to store md5hash in

// New constructs a new *Deployer.
func New(cfg config.AllProvider, logger loggers.Logger, localFs afero.Fs) (*Deployer, error) {
	dcfg := cfg.GetConfigSection(deployconfig.DeploymentConfigKey).(deployconfig.DeployConfig)
	targetName := dcfg.Target

	if len(dcfg.Targets) == 0 {
		return nil, errors.New("no deployment targets found")
	}
	mediaTypes := cfg.GetConfigSection("mediaTypes").(media.Types)

	// Find the target to deploy to.
	var tgt *deployconfig.Target
	if targetName == "" {
		// Default to the first target.
		tgt = dcfg.Targets[0]
	} else {
		for _, t := range dcfg.Targets {
			if t.Name == targetName {
				tgt = t
			}
		}
		if tgt == nil {
			return nil, fmt.Errorf("deployment target %q not found", targetName)
		}
	}

View on GitHub ↗ (pinned to 8a468df065)

Solutions

1. Add a target to your config: `[[deployment.targets]]` with `name` and `URL` (e.g. an s3://, gs://, or azblob:// URL).
2. If your deployment config is under config/production/, run with `--environment production` (the default for `hugo deploy`) or move it to the environment you build with.
3. In TOML ensure double brackets (`[[deployment.targets]]`), and in YAML ensure `targets:` is a list nested under `deployment:`.

Example fix

# before (hugo.toml — no deployment section)

# after
[deployment]
[[deployment.targets]]
name = "production"
URL = "s3://my-bucket?region=us-east-1"

if len(cfg.Deployment.Targets) == 0 {
    return errors.New("configure at least one [[deployment.targets]] with name and URL before running hugo deploy")
}

When it happens

Trigger: Running `hugo deploy` when the site config has no `[[deployment.targets]]` section at all, or when the section is mis-nested/misspelled so it decodes to an empty slice.

Common situations: First-time `hugo deploy` before configuring deployment; config split across files/environments where the deployment section lives in an environment config (e.g. config/production/) but Hugo is run in another environment; using `targets` as a plain table instead of an array-of-tables in TOML; YAML indentation putting targets outside the deployment key.

Related errors

• deployment target %q not found
• language %q not found
• unsupported format: %q
• deploy not supported in this version of Hugo; install a rele
• failed to create workingDir: %w

AI-assisted analysis of gohugoio/hugo@8a468df065 (2026-07-31). Data as JSON: /data/errors/780c0f12622de0d7.json. Report an issue: GitHub ↗.