Metalsmith

Theme by Metalsmith

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Updated: 11 Apr 2025

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7850 Stars

An extremely simple, pluggable static site generator for Node.js

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Overview

Metalsmith is a simple and pluggable static site generator that allows you to easily generate static websites by chaining plugins together. It works by reading files from a source directory, manipulating them using plugins, and writing the results to a destination directory. Metalsmith is highly customizable and powerful, allowing you to add various features and functionalities to your static sites.

Features

• Pluggable architecture: Metalsmith’s logic is handled by plugins, allowing you to easily extend its functionality.
• File manipulation: Metalsmith can read files from a source directory and manipulate them in various ways using plugins.
• Metadata support: Each file can contain YAML front-matter that can be attached as metadata and accessed by the plugins.
• Customization: Metalsmith allows you to add plugins to add features like hiding unfinished drafts, grouping posts, and adding custom permalinks.
• Plugin ecosystem: Metalsmith has a wide range of plugins available in its official plugin registry and core plugins on GitHub.

Installation

To install Metalsmith, you can use either npm or yarn. Here’s how you can install it using both package managers:

NPM:

npm install metalsmith

Yarn:

yarn add metalsmith

Summary

Metalsmith is a simple and pluggable static site generator that provides a flexible and customizable way to generate static websites. By utilizing plugins, you can easily add features and manipulate files in your site. Metalsmith’s powerful ecosystem of plugins allows for endless possibilities in building static sites.