Migrating to Dune

Dune ships four migration commands for importing content from other platforms. They read your existing content, convert it to Dune's folder-based structure, and write the result into your site's content/ directory. Your original files are never modified.

dune migrate:from-grav <src>
dune migrate:from-wordpress <src>
dune migrate:from-markdown <src>
dune migrate:from-hugo <src>

Common options

All four commands accept the same set of options:

Option	Default	Description
`--out <dir>`	`content/`	Write imported content to a different directory
`--dry-run`	off	Print what would be created without writing any files
`--verbose`	off	Print each file as it is processed
`--root <dir>`	`.`	Dune site root (if running from outside the site directory)

Always do a dry run first and review the output before writing files to your live content directory.

Migrating from Grav

Grav uses nearly the same folder + frontmatter structure as Dune, so this migration is the simplest. Content files, numeric folder prefixes, co-located media, and taxonomy are all preserved as-is. Grav-specific fields (process, access, sitemap) are silently dropped.

dune migrate:from-grav /path/to/grav-site

Point at either the full Grav installation directory or just its user/pages/ subdirectory — the command auto-detects which you provided.

What is preserved

Grav field	Dune field	Notes
`title`	`title`	Direct
`date`	`date`	Direct
`published`	`published`	Direct
`visible`	`visible`	Direct
`routable`	`routable`	Direct
`slug`	`slug`	Direct
`template`	`template`	Direct
`taxonomy`	`taxonomy`	Direct
`metadata`	`metadata`	Direct
`routes.aliases`	`routes.aliases`	Direct
`header.image`	`image`	Promoted to top level
`header.author`	`custom.author`	Moved under `custom`
Media files	Media files	Copied unchanged

What is dropped

process (Grav rendering flags)
access (Grav ACL)
sitemap (Grav sitemap config — Dune auto-generates sitemaps)
cache_control, never_cache (replaced by Dune's cache config)

Migrating from WordPress

Export your WordPress site via Tools → Export and choose "All content". This produces a WXR file (WordPress eXtended RSS, an XML format).

dune migrate:from-wordpress /path/to/export.xml

What is imported

Posts are written into content/01.blog/ with a post.md template, sorted by publish date and numbered sequentially. A content/01.blog/default.md listing page is created automatically if one does not exist.

Pages are written as top-level pages using the default.md template.

WordPress field	Dune field
`post_title`	`title`
`post_name` (slug)	folder name
`post_date`	`date`
`post_status`	`published` (`publish` → `true`)
Category terms	`taxonomy.category`
Tag terms	`taxonomy.tag`
`content:encoded`	Markdown body (HTML passthrough)

Content format

WordPress content is HTML. Dune's markdown renderer passes raw HTML through unchanged, so your content will display correctly without conversion. If you want clean markdown, use a tool like Pandoc on the individual files after migration.

Not imported

Comments (Dune has its own comment system — migrate manually if needed)
Users (create admin users via dune new or the admin panel)
Attachments / media (download your wp-content/uploads/ separately and place files in the relevant content/ page folders or a shared static/ directory)
Custom post types beyond post and page
Plugin data (ACF fields, WooCommerce products, etc.)

Migrating from a markdown folder

Import any flat or nested directory of .md files. This works for content exported from Notion, Obsidian, Bear, or any other tool that produces standard markdown files.

dune migrate:from-markdown /path/to/markdown-folder

What happens

Each .md file becomes a numbered folder (e.g. 01.my-post/default.md)
Existing YAML frontmatter is preserved as-is
Files with no title get a title derived from the filename
Files with no published field default to published: true
All-uppercase files (README.md, CHANGELOG.md) are skipped
Subdirectories are processed recursively, producing nested Dune folders
Non-markdown files (images, PDFs) are copied alongside their markdown source

Tips

Run with --dry-run --verbose first to review the folder mapping before committing
If your files have frontmatter, Dune will use it as-is — clean it up before or after migration
Files without frontmatter get minimal Dune frontmatter auto-generated (title + published)

Migrating from Hugo

Point at the root of your Hugo site. The command reads from content/ and copies static/ assets.

dune migrate:from-hugo /path/to/hugo-site

Frontmatter mapping

Hugo supports YAML (---), TOML (+++), and JSON ({}) frontmatter — all three are handled.

Hugo field	Dune field	Notes
`title`	`title`	Direct
`date` / `publishDate`	`date`	ISO date, time part stripped
`draft: true`	`published: false`	Inverted
`slug`	`slug`	Direct
`tags`	`taxonomy.tag`
`categories`	`taxonomy.category`
`aliases`	`routes.aliases`
`description` / `summary`	`metadata.description`
`author` / `authors`	`custom.author`
`weight`	`order`	Used for nav ordering

Section index pages

Hugo's _index.md section index files are renamed to default.md — the Dune equivalent.

Static assets

Files in Hugo's static/ directory are copied to static/ in your Dune site root (creating it if needed). Reference them in content as /filename.ext.

Not imported

Hugo layouts and partials (Dune uses its own theme system — see Themes)
Hugo shortcodes (convert to plain HTML or Dune's block system manually)
Hugo data files (data/ directory)
Hugo config.toml / config.yaml (recreate your settings in Dune's site.yaml)

After migration

Once the import is complete:

Start the dev server to preview your content: dune dev
Check for issues: dune content:check reports missing titles, broken internal links, and missing templates
Assign templates: Dune looks for a theme template matching each page's filename (e.g. post.md → post.tsx). Add any missing templates to your theme or update the template: frontmatter field
Review taxonomy: Run dune content:list to see all pages and their published state
Handle media: For WordPress imports, download your media files and place them in the appropriate content/ page folders

Example workflow

# 1. Dry run to see what will be created
dune migrate:from-hugo ~/old-blog --dry-run --verbose

# 2. Run the actual migration
dune migrate:from-hugo ~/old-blog

# 3. Check for problems
dune content:check

# 4. Start the dev server and review
dune dev