Why do pages disappear with `index.md` and reappear with `_index.md`?

[third_try]

So I have a basic structure:

/content/punctuation/
    index.md
    comma.md
    period.md
    apostrophe.md

All these markdown files are in the same directory, punctuation.

For some reason comma, period, and apostrophe don’t render. I get 404 on them. I rendered the site into public and found that the markdown of the missing pages was not even rendering. They’re just missing.

I tried turning the index.md into an _index.md and suddenly the pages render properly.

But I don’t want a list view (_index.md) but a page with custom descriptions and links to the content (an index.md).

Can someone explain what’s happening, and maybe suggest a solution?

Thanks.

Edit

I have found the following comment but I am not sure it solves my problem.

Can't figure out the very basics of content structure ↔︎ generated

You can use both variants in your project but you need to understand the implications which come with them. Since Hugo 0.32 everything in /content is basically regarded as page bundle and with that the distinction between index.md and _index.md got way more important. Refer to the documentation posted above to learn more. Basically with an _index.md hugo basically performs like in earlier versions so every file gets their own structure. If you name it as index.md however it changes the behavior…

I think the only solution to my problem is to add an {{ if then }} into my list.html page checking for a flag that turns off rendering lists of pages. I hope that’s not true.

I would like to add that this page-bundle leaf (index.md) vs branch (_index.md) is very confusing as it introduces, in addition to the distinction between singles and lists, all kinds of other implications. Is this a logical relationship?

Trying to comprehend this at the moment:

Can't figure out the very basics of content structure ↔︎ generated

Specifically, a branch bundle. Renaming it to an index.* (without the _ ) turns the dir into a leaf bundle. There are differences as to how each of these bundles treats content files (eg .md) that reside in its directory. Consider the pairs of content<=> public directories below: Assuming fresh Hugo site, no weird configs, no unusual front matter, url not set in front matter, draft: false Scenario 1 No *index.md = no page bundles. content/lorem ├── four │ ├── hello.md │ └── world.md ├──…

[bep]

A index.md tells Hugo to bundle all sibling and descendant files into a bundle. So they don’t disappear, they get wrapped up, so to speak.

[third_try]

Thank you for the reply.

How can I “unwrap” them and put them to use?

[bep]

@third_try

How can I “unwrap” them and put them to use?

You can start by reading the documentation about “leaf bundles”.