Hasty

A SwiftUI-inspired static site generator for Dart. Compose HTML pages using typed, composable functions — no raw strings, no templates, no fuss.

Installation

Add to your pubspec.yaml:

dependencies:
  hasty: ^0.0.2

Then run:

dart pub get

Quick Start

import 'package:hasty/hasty.dart';

void main() async {
  final page = vStack(
    id: 'app',
    style: Style(fontFamily: 'sans-serif', padding: 24, maxWidth: 800),
    children: [
      h1('Hello, Hasty!', style: Style(color: Colors.indigo)),
      p('A page built entirely in Dart.'),
    ],
  );

  await emit(page, title: 'Hello Hasty'); // writes build/index.html
}

Concepts

Nodes

Everything is a Node — a lightweight representation of an HTML element. Tag functions like div, h1, and p return nodes that you compose into a tree.

Layout

Hasty provides Flutter-style layout primitives that map to CSS flexbox:

hStack(
  children: [
    h1('My Site'),
    spacer(), // expands to push nav to the right
    nav(children: [
      hStack(style: Style(gap: 16), children: [
        a(href: '#about', content: 'About'),
        a(href: '#contact', content: 'Contact'),
      ]),
    ]),
  ],
)

Function	HTML output	Description
vStack	<div> (flex column)	Vertical stack
hStack	<div> (flex row)	Horizontal stack
zStack	<div> (relative)	Layered stack (children use absolute)
spacer	<div> (flex: 1)	Expands to fill remaining space
padding	<div>	Wraps a child with configurable padding
center	<div> (flex center)	Centers a child horizontally/vertically

Both hStack and vStack accept MainAxisAlignment and CrossAxisAlignment to control child alignment.

Styles

Use the Style class for type-safe inline CSS — no raw strings needed:

Style(
  color: Colors.indigo,
  backgroundColor: Colors.white,
  padding: 16,
  borderRadius: 8,
  border: '1px solid ${Colors.lightGray}',
  fontWeight: FontWeight.semibold,
  textAlign: TextAlign.center,
)

Colors — Colors.black, Colors.white, Colors.red, Colors.orange, Colors.yellow, Colors.green, Colors.teal, Colors.blue, Colors.indigo, Colors.purple, Colors.pink, Colors.gray, Colors.lightGray, Colors.darkGray, Colors.transparent

Custom colors: Color.hex('#ff6600'), Color.rgb(255, 102, 0), Color.rgba(255, 102, 0, 0.5)

FontWeight — thin, light, normal, medium, semibold, bold, extrabold

Enums — TextAlign, TextDecoration, Position, Display, Float, FlexWrap, AlignSelf

Tags

Headings

h1 h2 h3 h4 h5 h6

Text

p span strong em — and text(content, kind: TextKind.caption) for the full set (h1–h6, body, caption, label)

Containers

div section article main_ header footer nav

Lists

ul(children: [
  li('First item'),
  li('Second item'),
])

Links & Buttons

a(href: 'https://example.com', content: 'Visit', target: '_blank')
button('Submit', type: 'submit')

Media

img(src: 'photo.png', alt: 'A photo') hr() br()

Forms

form(
  action: '/contact',
  method: 'post',
  children: [
    label(htmlFor: 'email', content: 'Email'),
    input(type: 'email', id: 'email', name: 'email', required: true),
    textarea(name: 'message', placeholder: 'Your message', rows: 5),
    select(name: 'topic', children: [
      option(value: 'support', content: 'Support'),
      option(value: 'sales', content: 'Sales', selected: true),
    ]),
    button('Send', type: 'submit'),
  ],
)

Tables

table(children: [
  caption('Team'),
  thead(children: [
    tr(children: [
      th(content: 'Name', scope: Scope.col),
      th(content: 'Role', scope: Scope.col),
    ]),
  ]),
  tbody(children: [
    tr(children: [td(content: 'Alice'), td(content: 'Engineer')]),
    tr(children: [td(content: 'Bob'),   td(content: 'Designer')]),
  ]),
])

Raw HTML

For trusted content only — bypasses escaping:

raw('<strong>bold</strong>')

Never pass user-supplied data to raw.

Emitting output

// Write build/index.html — output is automatically prettified
await emit(page, title: 'My Site');

// Custom output directory, file name, and language
await emit(page, outputDir: 'public', fileName: 'about', title: 'About', lang: 'fr');

// Get the raw HTML string without writing any files
final html = renderHtml(page);

emit displays a progress spinner via mason_logger and prints a green ✓ with elapsed time on completion.

CLI argument parsing

Hasty includes a lightweight argument parser for build scripts:

import 'dart:io';
import 'package:hasty/hasty.dart';

void main(List<String> args) async {
  final parser = Parser();
  parser.register('output', 'Output directory', type: String);
  parser.register('--minify', 'Skip formatting');

  try {
    parser.parse(args);
  } catch (e) {
    print(e);
    exit(1);
  }

  final outDir = parser.getParsed()['output'] ?? 'build';
  await emit(page, outputDir: outDir);
}

Flags can be passed as output=public, output:public, or output public.

Full Example

See example/hasty_example.dart for a complete page demonstrating nav with spacer, a padding/center hero, a ul/li feature list, a specs table, a contact form, and CLI argument parsing.

See bin/hasty.dart for a working blog layout that additionally shows inline text styling with span and FontWeight.