Hexo Dev Docker

A Docker image for the Hexo static blogging platform. Supports custom themes, plugins, and configurations. Primarily intended for local development and rapid prototyping of blog posts, but can also be used in production — the recommended approach is to use hexo deploy to push the generated static files to a CDN or web server.

Supported Architectures

Architecture	Available	Tag
x86-64	✅	latest
arm64	✅	latest

Images

Registry	Image
GHCR	ghcr.io/fletchto99/hexo-dev-docker
Docker Hub	fletchto99/hexo-dev-blog

Quick start

Docker Compose (recommended)

services:
  blog:
    image: ghcr.io/fletchto99/hexo-dev-docker
    ports:
      - "8080:8080"
    volumes:
      - ./blog:/config
    environment:
      - HEXO_PLUGINS=hexo-wordcount hexo-deploy-rsync  # optional

docker compose up

Docker CLI

docker run -d \
  --name blog \
  -v ./blog:/config \
  -e HEXO_PLUGINS="hexo-wordcount hexo-deploy-rsync" \
  -p 8080:8080 \
  ghcr.io/fletchto99/hexo-dev-docker

Configuration

Volumes

Mount	Description
/config	Blog source files, themes, and generated output

Environment variables

Variable	Required	Description
HEXO_PLUGINS	No	Space-separated list of Hexo plugins to install at startup (e.g. hexo-wordcount hexo-deploy-rsync)

Config directory structure

On first startup, if the /config volume is empty, Hexo will initialize a new blog with the default scaffolding:

/config/
├── _config.yml     # Hexo configuration
├── source/
│   └── _posts/     # Markdown blog posts
├── themes/         # Hexo themes
└── public/         # Generated static HTML (safe to deploy)

Advanced usage

Custom themes

1. Clone the theme into your blog/themes/<theme-name> directory on the host.
2. Attach to the container console: docker exec -it blog bash
3. Navigate to /config/themes/<theme-name> and run any required setup commands (e.g. npm install).
4. Update _config.yml to use the new theme.

Deploying via rsync

This container includes rsync for deployment. Add the hexo-deploy-rsync plugin via the HEXO_PLUGINS environment variable, then configure the deploy section in _config.yml:

deploy:
  type: rsync
  host: <prod server>
  user: <user>
  root: <path/to/blog/dir>
  port: 22
  delete: true
  args: "-e ssh -i /config/deploy_key <user>@<prod server>"
  verbose: true
  ignore_errors: false

Place your private key at blog/deploy_key on the host (mounted as /config/deploy_key in the container), then run:

docker exec -it blog hexo deploy