What version of Hugo are you using (hugo version)?

$ hugo version
hugo v0.150.0-3f5473b7d4e7377e807290c3acc89feeef1aaa71+extended linux/amd64 BuildDate=2025-09-08T13:01:12Z VendorInfo=snap:0.150.0

Version v0.150.0

Does this issue reproduce with the latest release?

Yes

Issue Description

When building localized draft content, resources (e.g. an image) still get built.

TL;DR Example

I have a draft content content/my-blog-post/. This contains the following files:

• Content markdown file content/my-blog-post/index.it.md
• An image content/my-blog-post/gfx/red.jpg

---
title: "Test Localized Draft"
draft: true
---

# Localized Draft (IT)

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.

![](gfx/red.jpg)

If I build the website, I can clearly see that under public/ there's not the HTML page for my-blog-post, as expected. However, the image is present at public/my-blog-post/gfx/red.jpg.

Below is a more complete example to reproduce the issue.

Example (MRE)

1. Setup quickstart:

   hugo new site .

2. Clone a theme:

   git clone https://github.com/theNewDynamic/gohugo-theme-ananke.git themes/ananke

3. Update hugo.yaml:

   baseURL: "/"
   languageCode: en-us
   theme: "ananke"
   
   params:
     defaultContentLanguage: "en"
   
     languagesDir: "i18n"
   
   languages:
     en: {}
     it: {}

4. Write some draft content, placing an image under gfx/ (such as this: red.jpg:

   • Draft content in default language:

     • content/test-en-draft/gfx/red.jpg

     • content/test-en-draft/index.md:

       ---
       title: "Test English Draft"
       draft: true
       ---
       
       # English Draft
       
       Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.
       
       ![](gfx/red.jpg)

   • Draft content in a secondary language (e.g. it):

     • content/test-it-draft/gfx/red.jpg

     • content/test-it-draft/index.it.md:

       ---
       title: "Test Italian Draft"
       draft: true
       ---
       
       # Italian Draft
       
       Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.
       
       ![](gfx/red.jpg)

   • Draft content with multiple languages (e.g. default and it):

     • content/test-multi-draft/gfx/red.jpg

     • content/test-multi-draft/index.md:

       ---
       title: "Test MultiLanguage Draft (EN)"
       draft: true
       ---
       
       # MultiLanguage Draft (EN)
       
       Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.
       
       ![](gfx/red.jpg)

     • content/test-multi-draft/index.it.md:

       ---
       title: "Test MultiLanguage Draft (IT)"
       draft: true
       ---
       
       # MultiLanguage Draft (IT)
       
       Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.
       
       ![](gfx/red.jpg)

5. Run Hugo:

   hugo server --disableFastRender --cleanDestinationDir --gc --ignoreCache

6. Have a look at the generated pages:

   tree public
   public
   ├── 404.html
   ├── ananke
   │   └── css
   │       ├── main.css.map
   │       └── main.min.css
   ├── categories
   │   ├── index.html
   │   └── index.xml
   ├── en
   │   ├── index.html
   │   └── sitemap.xml
   ├── images
   │   └── gohugo-default-sample-hero-image.jpg
   ├── index.html
   ├── index.xml
   ├── it
   │   ├── 404.html
   │   ├── categories
   │   │   ├── index.html
   │   │   └── index.xml
   │   ├── index.html
   │   ├── index.xml
   │   ├── sitemap.xml
   │   └── tags
   │       ├── index.html
   │       └── index.xml
   ├── sitemap.xml
   ├── tags
   │   ├── index.html
   │   └── index.xml
   └── test-it-draft
       └── gfx
           └── red.jpg <-- Why?
   
   12 directories, 22 files

Question

Is this behaviour intended/expected? Am I missing something or configuring localization wrongly?