How to set the homepage cover image in the Ananke theme for Hugo

It is quite straightforward to set the cover image in Hugo’s Ananke theme. We store an image in the images folder of a post and set the featured_image variable to the images/cover.jpg path. The folder structure for a post then looks like this:

content
- posts
  - first-post
    - images
      - cover.jpg
    - index.md

And the post’s front matter in first-post/index.md would look like this:

\---
featured\_image: images/cover.jpg
---

# First post

Lorem ipsum...

<!--- file: first-post/index.md --->

But how do you do this for the homepage? It typically has no markdown file. However, you can add content to the homepage by creating an _index.md in the content folder. And you can use that _index.md file to set the aforementioned front matter variables. We can then replicate the process of adding a featured image for a post.

Thus, inside the content folder, create the _index.md folder and an images folder with your cover image:

content
- \_index.md
- images
  - cover.jpg
- posts
  - first-post
    - images
      - cover.jpg
    - index.md

Then, in your _index.md file’s front matter, add the featured_image variable and set it to images/cover.jpg.

\---
featured\_image: images/cover.jpg
---

<!--- Optionally add some extra content to your homepage. I am using \_index.md only to set the featured image through the front matter. --->

<!--- file: content/\_index.md --->

Your homepage should now have a function featured image.

• hugo