Metalsmith

An extremely simple, pluggable static site generator.

In Metalsmith, all of the logic is handled by plugins. You simply chain them together. Here's what the simplest blog looks like...

Metalsmith(__dirname)
  .use(markdown())
  .use(layouts('handlebars'))
  .build(function(err) {
    if (err) throw err;
    console.log('Build finished!');
  });

...but what if you want to get fancier by hiding your unfinished drafts and using custom permalinks? Just add plugins...

Metalsmith(__dirname)
  .use(drafts())
  .use(markdown())
  .use(permalinks('posts/:title'))
  .use(layouts('handlebars'))
  .build(function(err) {
    if (err) throw err;
    console.log('Build finished!');
  });

...it's as easy as that!

Special thanks to Ian Storm Taylor, Andrew Meyer, Dominic Barnes, Andrew Goodricke and others for their contributions!

Installation

$ npm install metalsmith

Plugins

Check out the website for a list of plugins.

How does it work?

Metalsmith works in three simple steps:

1. Read all the files in a source directory.
2. Invoke a series of plugins that manipulate the files.
3. Write the results to a destination directory!

Each plugin is invoked with the contents of the source directory, and each file can contain YAML front-matter that will be attached as metadata, so a simple file like...

---
title: A Catchy Title
date: 2014-12-01
---

An informative article.

...would be parsed into...

{
  'path/to/my-file.md': {
    title: 'A Catchy Title',
    date: new Date('2014-12-01'),
    contents: new Buffer('An informative article.')
  }
}

...which any of the plugins can then manipulate however they want. And writing the plugins is incredibly simple, just take a look at the example drafts plugin.

Of course they can get a lot more complicated too. That's what makes Metalsmith powerful; the plugins can do anything you want!

The secret...

We keep referring to Metalsmith as a "static site generator", but it's a lot more than that. Since everything is a plugin, the core library is actually just an abstraction for manipulating a directory of files.

Which means you could just as easily use it to make...

• A simple project scaffolder.
• A simple build tool for Sass files.
• A simple static site generator.
• A Jekyll-like static site generator.
• A Wintersmith-like static site generator.

Resources

• IRC Channel - it's

  #metalsmith

  on freenode!
• Slack Channel
• Getting to Know Metalsmith - a great series about how to use Metalsmith for your static site.
• Building a Blog With Metalsmith - a blog post about how to create a basic blog with Metalsmith. Check out the related video of the talk too!
• Awesome Metalsmith - great collection of resources, examples, and tutorials

CLI

In addition to a simple Javascript API, the Metalsmith CLI can read configuration from a

metalsmith.json

{
  "source": "src",
  "destination": "build",
  "plugins": {
    "metalsmith-drafts": true,
    "metalsmith-markdown": true,
    "metalsmith-permalinks": "posts/:title",
    "metalsmith-layouts": "handlebars"
  }
}

You can specify your plugins as either an object or array. Using an array would allow you to specify use of the same plugin multiple times. The above example is then defined as so:

{
  "source": "src",
  "destination": "build",
  "plugins": [
    {"metalsmith-drafts": true},
    {"metalsmith-markdown": true},
    {"metalsmith-permalinks": "posts/:title"},
    {"metalsmith-templates": "handlebars"}
  ]
}

And then just install

metalsmith

$ node_modules/.bin/metalsmith

Metalsmith · reading configuration from: /path/to/metalsmith.json
Metalsmith · successfully built to: /path/to/build

Or if you install them globally, you can just use:

$ metalsmith

Metalsmith · reading configuration from: /path/to/metalsmith.json
Metalsmith · successfully built to: /path/to/build

Options recognised by

metalsmith.json

source

destination

concurrency

metadata

clean

frontmatter

Checkout the static site, Jekyll or Wintersmith examples to see the CLI in action.

If you want to use a custom plugin, but feel like it's too domain-specific to be published to the world, you can include plugins as local npm modules: (simply use a relative path from your root directory)

{
  "plugins": {
    "./lib/metalsmith/plugin.js": true
  }
}

API

Checkout the project scaffolder or build tool examples to see a real example of the Javascript API in use.

new Metalsmith(dir)

Create a new

Metalsmith

dir

#use(plugin)

Add the given

plugin

(files, metalsmith, callback)

files

metalsmith.metadata()

callback

#build(fn)

Build with the given settings and a callback having signature

fn(err, files)

#source(path)

Set the relative

path

path

./src

#destination(path)

Set the relative

path

path

./build

#concurrency(max)

Set the maximum number of files to open at once when reading or writing. Defaults to

Infinity

EMFILE

ulimit -n

#clean(boolean)

Set whether to remove the destination directory before writing to it, or get the current setting. Defaults to

true

#frontmatter(boolean)

Set whether to parse YAML frontmatter. Defaults to

true

#ignore(path)

Ignore files/paths from being loaded into Metalsmith.

path

stat

fs.stat

true

false

#metadata(json)

Get the global metadata. This is useful for plugins that want to set global-level metadata that can be applied to all files.

#path(paths...)

Resolve any amount of

paths...

./layouts

#run(files, fn)

Run all of the middleware functions on a dictionary of

files

fn(err, files)

files

#process(fn)

Process the files like build without writing any files. Callback signature

fn(err, files)

Metadata API

Add metadata to your files to access these build features. By default, Metalsmith uses a few different metadata fields:

• contents

  - The body content of the file, not including any YAML frontmatter.

• mode

  - The numeric version of the file's mode.

You can add your own metadata in two ways:

• Using YAML frontmatter at the top of any file.
• Enabling a plugin that adds metadata programmatically.

mode

Set the mode of the file. For example,

$ cat cleanup.sh

--
mode: 0764
--
rm -rf .

would be built with mode

-rwxrw-r--

Troubleshooting

Node Version Requirements

Metalsmith v2.0 and above uses generators which has some considerations for

node.js 0.12.x

Using

node.js 0.10.x

You have two options:

1. Upgrade to latest stable version of

   node.js

   (>=

   0.12.x

   — see "Using

   node.js 0.12.x

   " section below)
2. Use Metalsmith v1.7. Put

   "metalsmith": "^1.7.0"

   in your

   package.json

   and

   npm install

   that version.

Using

node.js 0.12.x

You have three options:

1. Run

   node.js

   with

   --harmony_generators

   flag set.

   1. node --harmony_generators my_script.js

   2. Using

      package.json

      :

      "scripts": {"start": "node --harmony_generators my_script.js"}

      . Run with

      npm run

2. npm install

   harmonize and require before Metalsmith is used. e.g.

   require("harmonize")(["harmony-generators"]);

3. Use Metalsmith v1.7. Put

   "metalsmith": "^1.7.0"

   in your

   package.json

   and

   npm install

   that version.

License

Maintenance

This project is no longer maintained by Segment. Instead, Andrew Goodricke, Andrew Meyer and Ismay are maintaining the project.