gohugoio/hugo · error

inject: absolute paths not supported, must be relative to…

Error message

inject: absolute paths not supported, must be relative to /assets

What it means

Returned when an entry in the Inject option is an absolute filesystem path. Hugo's js.Build Inject resolves files only relative to the /assets filesystem; absolute paths are explicitly rejected at build.go:87.

Solutions

1. Strip the leading slash / drive letter so the path is relative to /assets.
2. Use forward slashes (e.g. "js/shims.js").

Example fix

// before
{{ $opts := dict "inject" (slice "/abs/path/shims.js") }}

// after
{{ $opts := dict "inject" (slice "js/shims.js") }}

for _, p := range opts.Inject {
    if filepath.IsAbs(filepath.FromSlash(p)) {
        return fmt.Errorf("inject path must be relative to /assets: %q", p)
    }
}

When it happens

Trigger: Passing opts.Inject containing a path that begins with / (or a Windows drive letter) to js.Build. filepath.IsAbs returns true and the build aborts before resolution is attempted.

Common situations: User copies a config from a raw Node/esbuild setup where absolute paths are normal; templating that joins paths produces a leading slash; environment-specific absolute paths in a shared config.

Related errors

• inject: file not found
• failed to compile cache buster target
• failed to marshal params
• failed to read import
• failed to read

AI-assisted analysis of gohugoio/hugo@52c9bd7908 (2026-08-09). Data as JSON: /api/errors/a1021e946e97d08b. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at internal/js/esbuild/build.go:87

		return api.BuildResult{}, err
	}

	if err := opts.compile(); err != nil {
		return api.BuildResult{}, err
	}

	var err error
	opts.compiled.Plugins, err = createBuildPlugins(c.rs, assetsResolver, dependencyManager, opts)
	if err != nil {
		return api.BuildResult{}, err
	}

	if opts.Inject != nil {
		// Resolve the absolute filenames.
		for i, ext := range opts.Inject {
			impPath := filepath.FromSlash(ext)
			if filepath.IsAbs(impPath) {
				return api.BuildResult{}, fmt.Errorf("inject: absolute paths not supported, must be relative to /assets")
			}

			m := assetsResolver.resolveComponent(impPath, false)

			if m == nil {
				return api.BuildResult{}, fmt.Errorf("inject: file %q not found", ext)
			}

			opts.Inject[i] = m.Filename

		}

		opts.compiled.Inject = opts.Inject

	}

	result := api.Build(opts.compiled)

View on GitHub (pinned to 52c9bd7908)