hextra/exampleSite/content/docs/guide/organize-files.md

---
title: Organize Files
weight: 1
---

## Directory Structure

By default, Hugo searches for Markdown files in the `content` directory, and the structure of the directory determines the final output structure of your website.
Take the example site as an example:

{{< filetree/container >}}
  {{< filetree/folder name="content" >}}
    {{< filetree/file name="_index.md" >}}
    {{< filetree/folder name="docs" state="open" >}}
      {{< filetree/file name="_index.md" >}}
      {{< filetree/file name="getting-started.md" >}}
      {{< filetree/folder name="guide" state="open" >}}
        {{< filetree/file name="_index.md" >}}
        {{< filetree/file name="organize-files.md" >}}
      {{< /filetree/folder >}}
    {{< /filetree/folder >}}
    {{< filetree/folder name="blog" state="open" >}}
      {{< filetree/file name="_index.md" >}}
      {{< filetree/file name="post-1.md" >}}
    {{< /filetree/folder >}}
  {{< /filetree/folder >}}
{{< /filetree/container >}}

Each of the `_index.md` files is the index page for the corresponding section. The other Markdown files are regular pages.

```
content
├── _index.md // <- /
├── docs
│   ├── _index.md // <- /docs/
│   ├── getting-started.md // <- /docs/getting-started/
│   └── guide
│       ├── _index.md // <- /docs/guide/
│       └── organize-files.md // <- /docs/guide/organize-files/
└── blog
    ├── _index.md // <- /blog/
    └── post-1.md // <- /blog/post-1/
```

## Sidebar Navigation

The sidebar navigation is generated automatically based on the content organization alphabetically. To manually configure the sidebar order, we can use the `weight` parameter in the front matter of the Markdown files.

```yaml {filename="content/docs/guide/_index.md"}
---
title: Guide
weight: 2
---
```

{{< callout emoji="ℹ️">}}
  It is recommended to keep the sidebar not too deep. If you have a lot of content, consider **splitting them into multiple sections**.
{{< /callout >}}

## Configure Content Directory

If we need to use a different directory for our content, we can do so by setting the [`contentDir`](https://gohugo.io/getting-started/configuration/#contentdir) parameter in our site configuration file.