Script to Install Latest Hugo Release on Linux and Mac

Running this script will install the latest (non-extended) hugo release. It was originally written for Linux. To make it work for Mac, find/replace occurrences of Linux with macOS.

Since this script writes to /usr/local/bin/, it will likely need to be run with sudo. For example:

sudo ./install-latest-hugo-release.sh

At the time of this writing, 0.49.2 was the latest hugo release.

Script #

#!/bin/bash

pushd /tmp/

curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/gohugoio/hugo/releases/latest \
| grep "browser_download_url.*hugo_[^extended].*_Linux-64bit\.tar\.gz" \
| cut -d ":" -f 2,3 \
| tr -d \" \
| wget -qi -

tarball="$(find . -name "*Linux-64bit.tar.gz")"
tar -xzf $tarball

chmod 755 hugo

mv hugo /usr/local/bin/

popd

location="$(which hugo)"
echo "Hugo binary location: $location"

version="$(hugo version)"
echo "Hugo binary version: $version"

Explained #

Change to the system’s temporary directory so that all files are downloaded here:

pushd /tmp/

Use curl to get a JSON response of the latest hugo releases. The -s option makes the request quietly:

curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/gohugoio/hugo/releases/latest

The response will look something like:

...
{
    "url": "https://api.github.com/repos/gohugoio/hugo/releases/assets/9091965",
    "id": 9091965,
    "node_id": "MDEyOlJlbGVhc2VBc3NldDkwOTE5NjU=",
    "name": "hugo_0.49.2_Linux-64bit.tar.gz",
    "label": "",
    "uploader": {
    "login": "bep",
    "id": 394382,
    "node_id": "MDQ6VXNlcjM5NDM4Mg==",
    "avatar_url": "https://avatars1.githubusercontent.com/u/394382?v=4",
    "gravatar_id": "",
    "url": "https://api.github.com/users/bep",
    "html_url": "https://github.com/bep",
    "followers_url": "https://api.github.com/users/bep/followers",
    "following_url": "https://api.github.com/users/bep/following{/other_user}",
    "gists_url": "https://api.github.com/users/bep/gists{/gist_id}",
    "starred_url": "https://api.github.com/users/bep/starred{/owner}{/repo}",
    "subscriptions_url": "https://api.github.com/users/bep/subscriptions",
    "organizations_url": "https://api.github.com/users/bep/orgs",
    "repos_url": "https://api.github.com/users/bep/repos",
    "events_url": "https://api.github.com/users/bep/events{/privacy}",
    "received_events_url": "https://api.github.com/users/bep/received_events",
    "type": "User",
    "site_admin": false
    },
    "content_type": "application/gzip",
    "state": "uploaded",
    "size": 7651283,
    "download_count": 3760,
    "created_at": "2018-10-11T09:49:57Z",
    "updated_at": "2018-10-11T09:49:58Z",
    "browser_download_url": "https://github.com/gohugoio/hugo/releases/download/v0.49.2/hugo_0.49.2_Linux-64bit.tar.gz"
},
...

Use grep to find the line we want. The [^extended] in the regex pattern will ensure that the non-extended version is found:

grep "browser_download_url.*hugo_[^extended].*_Linux-64bit\.tar\.gz"

The found line will look like:

"browser_download_url": "https://github.com/gohugoio/hugo/releases/download/v0.49.2/hugo_0.49.2_Linux-64bit.tar.gz"

Use cut to delimit the string by :, then return the 2nd and 3rd fields:

cut -d ":" -f 2,3

So now the string looks like:

"https://github.com/gohugoio/hugo/releases/download/v0.49.2/hugo_0.49.2_Linux-64bit.tar.gz"

Use tr to delete occurrences of ":

tr -d \"

So now the string looks like:

https://github.com/gohugoio/hugo/releases/download/v0.49.2/hugo_0.49.2_Linux-64bit.tar.gz

At this point, the URL string has had all irrelevant characters removed, and is then passed to wget. The -q option downloads the binary quiety, and the -i - option reads the URL from standard input:

wget -qi -

Use find to find the name of the downloaded tarball, then assign it to a variable:

tarball="$(find . -name "*Linux-64bit.tar.gz")"

Use tar to unzip the tarball. The -x option extracts the files. The -z option is needed since the tarball was ran through gzip when it was created. The -f option reads the file to be unzipped as argument:

tar -xzf $tarball

Give the hugo binary executable permissions:

chmod 755 hugo

Move the hugo binary from /tmp/ to /usr/local/bin/, which is already on your PATH:

mv hugo /usr/local/bin/

Change back to the directory that the script was initially run from:

popd

Use which to get the hugo binary location, assign it to a variable, then echo it:

location="$(which hugo)"
echo "Hugo binary location: $location"

Use hugo version to get the hugo binary version, assign it to a variable, then echo it:

version="$(hugo version)"
echo "Hugo binary version: $version"

My initial inspiration for this script was this gist.