Migrating to Quartz 5

This guide covers migrating to Quartz 5 from previous versions. If you’re already on Quartz 5 and want to update to the latest version, see Upgrading Quartz instead.

Migrating from Quartz 4

Overview

Quartz 5 introduces a community plugin system that fundamentally changes how plugins and components are managed. Most plugins that were built into Quartz 4 are now standalone community plugins maintained under the quartz-community organization. This guide walks through the changes needed to migrate your configuration.

What Changed

Plugin system: Plugins are now standalone Git repositories, installed via npx quartz plugin add
Import pattern: Community plugins use ExternalPlugin.X() (from .quartz/plugins) instead of Plugin.X() (from ./quartz/plugins)
Layout structure: quartz.layout.ts is gone — layout position is now a per-plugin property in quartz.config.yaml, with layout.groups for flex containers (e.g. toolbar) and layout.byPageType for per-page-type overrides
Page Types: A new plugin category for page rendering (content, folder, tag pages)
Component references: In layout files, community components use Plugin.X() (from .quartz/plugins) instead of Component.X() (from ./quartz/components)

Step-by-Step Migration

1. Set Up Quartz 5 with a Template

The easiest way to migrate is to use npx quartz create, which generates a complete quartz.config.yaml from a template with all default plugins pre-configured:

npx quartz create --template default --strategy copy --source /path/to/your/content

Available templates: default, obsidian, ttrpg, blog. Pick the one closest to your setup — obsidian is recommended if you use an Obsidian vault.

Choosing a template

Each template comes with all 30+ default plugins pre-configured. The main differences are content strategy (OFM support, link resolution) and optional plugins (comments, maps). You can customize everything in quartz.config.yaml afterward.

After running create, install all the plugins referenced in the generated config:

npx quartz plugin resolve

This reads your quartz.config.yaml and installs every plugin listed in it. No need to run 30 individual npx quartz plugin add commands.

Custom or optional plugins
If you used optional plugins in v4 (comments, reader-mode, breadcrumbs, recent-notes, citations, etc.), add them after the initial setup:
npx quartz plugin add github:quartz-community/comments
npx quartz plugin add github:quartz-community/reader-mode
npx quartz plugin add github:quartz-community/breadcrumbs
npx quartz plugin add github:quartz-community/recent-notes
See Plugins for the full list of available community plugins.

Alternative: Use npx quartz migrate

If you have an existing quartz.config.ts and quartz.layout.ts from v4, you can run npx quartz migrate instead. This reads your old config files and generates quartz.config.yaml with your existing settings. You’ll still need to run npx quartz plugin resolve afterward to install the plugins. See quartz migrate for details.

2. Update quartz.config.yaml

Before (v4):

quartz.config.ts

import * as Plugin from "./quartz/plugins"
 
plugins: {
  transformers: [
    Plugin.FrontMatter(),
    Plugin.CreatedModifiedDate({ priority: ["frontmatter", "git", "filesystem"] }),
    Plugin.Latex({ renderEngine: "katex" }),
  ],
  filters: [Plugin.RemoveDrafts()],
  emitters: [
    Plugin.AliasRedirects(),
    Plugin.ComponentResources(),
    Plugin.ContentPage(),
    Plugin.FolderPage(),
    Plugin.TagPage(),
    Plugin.ContentIndex({ enableSiteMap: true, enableRSS: true }),
    Plugin.Assets(),
    Plugin.Static(),
    Plugin.NotFoundPage(),
  ],
}

After (v5):

quartz.config.yaml

plugins:
  - source: github:quartz-community/note-properties
    enabled: true
    options:
      delimiters: "---"
      language: yaml
    order: 5
  - source: github:quartz-community/created-modified-date
    enabled: true
    options:
      priority:
        - frontmatter
        - git
        - filesystem
    order: 10
  - source: github:quartz-community/latex
    enabled: true
    options:
      renderEngine: katex
    order: 80
  - source: github:quartz-community/remove-draft
    enabled: true
  - source: github:quartz-community/alias-redirects
    enabled: true
  - source: github:quartz-community/content-index
    enabled: true
    options:
      enableSiteMap: true
      enableRSS: true
  - source: github:quartz-community/favicon
    enabled: true
  - source: github:quartz-community/og-image
    enabled: true
  - source: github:quartz-community/cname
    enabled: true
  - source: github:quartz-community/content-page
    enabled: true
  - source: github:quartz-community/folder-page
    enabled: true
  - source: github:quartz-community/tag-page
    enabled: true
  # ... more plugins

Key changes:

Plugins are now referenced by their GitHub source (github:org/repo)
Plugin type (transformer, filter, emitter, pageType) is determined by the plugin’s manifest, not by which array you place it in
Execution order is controlled by the order field (lower numbers run first)
Each plugin entry has enabled, options, order, and optionally layout fields
Install community plugins with npx quartz plugin add github:quartz-community/<name>

3. Update layout configuration

Before (v4):

quartz.layout.ts

import * as Component from "./quartz/components"
 
export const sharedPageComponents: SharedLayout = {
  head: Component.Head(),
  header: [],
  afterBody: [],
  footer: Component.Footer({ links: { ... } }),
}
 
export const defaultContentPageLayout: PageLayout = {
  beforeBody: [Component.Breadcrumbs(), Component.ArticleTitle(), Component.ContentMeta(), Component.TagList()],
  left: [Component.PageTitle(), Component.Search(), Component.Darkmode(), Component.Explorer()],
  right: [Component.Graph(), Component.TableOfContents(), Component.Backlinks()],
}

After (v5):

quartz.config.yaml

plugins:
  - source: github:quartz-community/breadcrumbs
    enabled: true
    layout:
      position: beforeBody
      priority: 5
  - source: github:quartz-community/article-title
    enabled: true
    layout:
      position: beforeBody
      priority: 10
  - source: github:quartz-community/content-meta
    enabled: true
    layout:
      position: beforeBody
      priority: 20
  - source: github:quartz-community/tag-list
    enabled: true
    layout:
      position: beforeBody
      priority: 30
  - source: github:quartz-community/page-title
    enabled: true
    layout:
      position: left
      priority: 10
  - source: github:quartz-community/search
    enabled: true
    layout:
      position: left
      priority: 20
  - source: github:quartz-community/darkmode
    enabled: true
    layout:
      position: left
      priority: 30
  - source: github:quartz-community/explorer
    enabled: true
    layout:
      position: left
      priority: 50
  - source: github:quartz-community/graph
    enabled: true
    layout:
      position: right
      priority: 10
  - source: github:quartz-community/backlinks
    enabled: true
    layout:
      position: right
      priority: 30
  - source: github:quartz-community/footer
    enabled: true
    options:
      links:
        GitHub: https://github.com/jackyzha0/quartz
        Discord Community: https://discord.gg/cRFFHYye7t
 
layout:
  byPageType:
    content: {}
    folder:
      exclude:
        - reader-mode
      positions:
        right: []
    tag:
      exclude:
        - reader-mode
      positions:
        right: []
    "404":
      positions:
        beforeBody: []
        left: []
        right: []

Key changes:

Layout position is now a property on each plugin entry (layout.position, layout.priority)
sharedPageComponents is gone — all layout is plugin-driven
Per-page-type overrides live in the layout.byPageType section
Empty arrays ([]) clear a position for that page type
The exclude field removes specific plugins from a page type

4. Update CI/CD

Add npx quartz plugin restore to your build pipeline, before npx quartz build. This installs plugins from the lockfile at their pinned versions.

If your CI uses quartz.config.default.yaml (or contributors may add plugins to config without updating the lockfile), also run npx quartz plugin resolve to install any config-referenced plugins that are missing from the lockfile:

npx quartz plugin restore  # install pinned plugins from lockfile
npx quartz plugin resolve  # install any config-referenced plugins not yet in lockfile
npx quartz build

See hosting for detailed CI/CD examples and ci-cd for advanced configuration.

5. Commit and Deploy

git add quartz.config.yaml quartz.lock.json
git commit -m "chore: migrate to Quartz 5 plugin system"

Cleaning up leftover plugins

After migrating, you may have plugins installed from v4 that are no longer in your v5 config. Run npx quartz plugin prune to remove them. Use --dry-run first to preview what would be removed.

Plugin Reference Table

Mapping v4 plugin names to v5 equivalents:

v4	v5	Type
`Plugin.FrontMatter()`	`Plugin.FrontMatter()` (unchanged)	Internal
`Plugin.CreatedModifiedDate()`	`ExternalPlugin.CreatedModifiedDate()`	Community
`Plugin.SyntaxHighlighting()`	`ExternalPlugin.SyntaxHighlighting()`	Community
`Plugin.ObsidianFlavoredMarkdown()`	`ExternalPlugin.ObsidianFlavoredMarkdown()`	Community
`Plugin.GitHubFlavoredMarkdown()`	`ExternalPlugin.GitHubFlavoredMarkdown()`	Community
`Plugin.CrawlLinks()`	`ExternalPlugin.CrawlLinks()`	Community
`Plugin.Description()`	`ExternalPlugin.Description()`	Community
`Plugin.Latex()`	`ExternalPlugin.Latex()`	Community
`Plugin.RemoveDrafts()`	`ExternalPlugin.RemoveDrafts()`	Community
`Plugin.ContentPage()`	`ExternalPlugin.ContentPage()`	Community (pageTypes)
`Plugin.FolderPage()`	`ExternalPlugin.FolderPage()`	Community (pageTypes)
`Plugin.TagPage()`	`ExternalPlugin.TagPage()`	Community (pageTypes)
`Plugin.NotFoundPage()`	`Plugin.PageTypes.NotFoundPageType()`	Internal (pageTypes)
`Plugin.ComponentResources()`	`Plugin.ComponentResources()` (unchanged)	Internal
`Plugin.Assets()`	`Plugin.Assets()` (unchanged)	Internal
`Plugin.Static()`	`Plugin.Static()` (unchanged)	Internal
`Plugin.AliasRedirects()`	`ExternalPlugin.AliasRedirects()`	Community
`Plugin.ContentIndex()`	`ExternalPlugin.ContentIndex()`	Community

Component layout mapping:

v4 Layout	v5 Layout
`Component.Explorer()`	`Plugin.Explorer()`
`Component.Graph()`	`Plugin.Graph()`
`Component.Search()`	`Plugin.Search()`
`Component.Backlinks()`	`Plugin.Backlinks()`
`Component.Darkmode()`	`Plugin.Darkmode()`
`Component.Footer()`	`Plugin.Footer()`
`Component.TableOfContents()`	`Plugin.TableOfContents()`
`Component.Head()`	`Component.Head()` (unchanged, internal)
`Component.Spacer()`	`Component.Spacer()` (unchanged, internal)

Migrating from Quartz 3

As you already have Quartz locally, you don’t need to fork or clone it again. Simply just checkout the v4 branch, install the dependencies, restore plugins, and import your old vault. Then follow the Quartz 4 migration steps above to get to v5.

git fetch
git checkout v4
git pull upstream v4
npm i
npx quartz plugin restore
npx quartz create

If you get an error like fatal: 'upstream' does not appear to be a git repository, make sure you add upstream as a remote origin:

git remote add upstream https://github.com/jackyzha0/quartz.git

When running npx quartz create, you will be prompted as to how to initialize your content folder. Here, you can choose to import or link your previous content folder and Quartz should work just as you expect it to.

Note

If the existing content folder you’d like to use is at the same path on a different branch, clone the repo again somewhere at a different path in order to use it.

Key changes from Quartz 3

Removing Hugo and hugo-obsidian: Hugo worked well for earlier versions of Quartz but it also made it hard for people outside of the Golang and Hugo communities to fully understand what Quartz was doing under the hood and be able to properly customize it to their needs. Quartz now uses a Node-based static-site generation process which should lead to much more helpful error messages and an overall smoother user experience.
Full-hot reload: The many rough edges of how hugo-obsidian integrated with Hugo meant that watch mode didn’t re-trigger hugo-obsidian to update the content index. This lead to a lot of weird cases where the watch mode output wasn’t accurate. Quartz now uses a cohesive parse, filter, and emit pipeline which gets run on every change so hot-reloads are always accurate.
Replacing Go template syntax with JSX: Quartz 3 used Go templates to create layouts for pages. However, the syntax isn’t great for doing any sort of complex rendering (like text processing) and it got very difficult to make any meaningful layout changes to Quartz 3. Quartz now uses an extension of JavaScript syntax called JSX which allows you to write layout code that looks like HTML in JavaScript which is significantly easier to understand and maintain.
A new extensible configuration and plugin system: Quartz 3 was hard to configure without technical knowledge of how Hugo’s partials worked. Extensions were even hard to make. Quartz 5’s configuration and plugin system is designed to be extended by users while making updating to new versions of Quartz easy.

Things to update

You will need to update your deploy scripts. See the hosting guide for more details.
Ensure that your default branch on GitHub is updated from hugo to v5.
Folder and tag listings have also changed.
- Folder descriptions should go under content/<folder-name>/index.md where <folder-name> is the name of the folder.
- Tag descriptions should go under content/tags/<tag-name>.md where <tag-name> is the name of the tag.
Some HTML layout may not be the same between Quartz 3 and Quartz 5. If you depended on a particular HTML hierarchy or class names, you may need to update your custom CSS to reflect these changes.
If you customized the layout of Quartz 3, you may need to translate these changes from Go templates back to JSX as Quartz 5 no longer uses Hugo. For components, check out the guide on creating components for more details on this.

Quartz 5

Explorer

Migrating to Quartz 5

Migrating from Quartz 4

Overview

What Changed

Step-by-Step Migration

1. Set Up Quartz 5 with a Template

2. Update quartz.config.yaml

3. Update layout configuration

4. Update CI/CD

5. Commit and Deploy

Plugin Reference Table

Migrating from Quartz 3

Key changes from Quartz 3

Things to update

Graph View

Backlinks