====== Minimal Static Site Generators ======

The suckless-adjacent landscape: for when you want more than [[indieweb:bashblog|bashblog]] but less than Hugo or Eleventy.

===== ssg =====

The classic tilde pick, popularized through low-tech and tilde circles: ~150 lines of POSIX sh by Roman Zolotarev. Markdown in, HTML out, plus a sitemap and RSS. Pairs with ''lowdown'' for markdown.

<code bash>
git clone https://github.com/roman-zolotarev/ssg
./ssg5 src dst "Site Title" "https://tilde.town/~you"
</code>

You write your own ''_header.html'' and ''_footer.html'' partials and a stylesheet.

===== saait =====

Single C binary, ~575 lines, no runtime deps: [[https://codemadness.org/saait.html|codemadness.org/saait]]. Page config files plus a global ''config.cfg'' plus a template dir. Generates pages, an index, an Atom feed, a twtxt.txt, ''sitemap.xml'', and ''urllist.txt'' out of the box.

<code bash>
git clone git://codemadness.org/saait && cd saait && make
./saait -c config.cfg -o output -t templates pages/*.cfg
</code>

Templates are files with ''{$var}'' substitution. Want markdown? Pre-convert with smu, lowdown, or pandoc into the pages dir first.

===== mkws =====

Shell as the templating language: ~30 lines of sh plus ~400 lines of C. Templates are shell code; you can call any unix tool from inside them.

<code sh>
# a page is literally a shell script that prints html
cat <<EOF
<html><body>
$(lowdown file.md)
<p>built $(date)</p>
</body></html>
EOF
</code>

Zero config. You script the generator instead of configuring it.

===== stagit =====

Not a blog: suckless.org's tool for turning a git repo into a static site. ''stagit repo/'' emits a browsable HTML mirror (log, files, commits, per-file views). ''stagit-index'' builds a repo list page. Runs fine on tildes to serve repos without cgit or GitLab.

===== lb =====

Luke Smith's "blog and rss script": [[https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz/lb|LukeSmithxyz/lb]]. bashblog-descended: ''lb new'', ''lb draft'', ''lb finalize'', ''lb delete'', auto-RSS and a standalone blogroll. If bashblog feels too interactive, lb is the script-then-publish variant.

===== DIY =====

A minimal SSG is ~20 lines of shell you already own:

<code bash>
for f in *.md; do
  pandoc -s --css=style.css --metadata pagetitle="$(basename $f .md)" \
    "$f" -o "${f%.md}.html"
done
</code>

Add [[indieweb:rss_by_hand|a hand-written feed]] and that is a blog.

===== Choosing =====

  * Want a blogging loop (post/edit/drafts): **bashblog** or **lb**
  * Want total control, few deps, hackable: **ssg** or **mkws**
  * Want feeds, twtxt, and sitemap from one binary: **saait**
  * Want your git repos browsable on the web: **stagit**
  * Want to understand every line: **DIY pandoc**

All output is plain HTML. Push to any pubnix with rsync: [[tilde:publishing|Publishing on a Pubnix]].

===== See Also =====

  * [[indieweb:bashblog|bashblog]]
  * [[indieweb:pureblog|Pure Blog]]
  * [[indieweb:html_css|Hand-Written HTML and CSS]]
  * [[indieweb:start|IndieWeb Index]]
  * [[start|Return to wiki home]]