Toss

Toss is a minimal CLI to deploy and share static sites, HTML, and Markdown from your own server. Fast configuration and easy to setup so you can use it from about everywhere and share your work with private URLs.

Features

• Deploy a Markdown file, an HTML file, or a full directory with a single command
• Markdown pages render in the browser with LaTeX (KaTeX), syntax highlighting, footnotes, callouts, and Mermaid diagrams
• Random slugs by default, custom slugs with --slug
• Build-and-deploy in one step with --build
• List, hide, unhide, and permanently delete deployments
• Visit stats (total requests, unique visitors, last accessed) via Caddy JSON logs
• Machine-readable JSON output with --json (deploy, list, stats)
• Skip confirmation prompts with -y for scripting and automation
• Zero server-side dependencies beyond Caddy and SSH access

Installation and setup

Note

The following prerequisites are needed before installing toss.

• Python 3.10+
• uv
• git
• rsync and ssh available in PATH (client-side)
• SSH access to a server running Caddy

Server-side setup

You'll first need to configure your server to serve files through SSH and Caddy. This section assumes you are running the commands on your server.

Add a DNS A record: share (or anything you like) pointing to your server IP.

Create the sites directory and give your SSH user write access:

sudo mkdir -p /srv/sites
sudo chown youruser:youruser /srv/sites

Add a block to your Caddyfile for the share subdomain:

share.yourdomain.com {
    root * /srv/sites
    file_server
    header X-Robots-Tag "noindex, nofollow"
    handle_errors {
        rewrite * /404.html
        file_server
    }
}

If running Caddy in Docker, also mount /srv/sites in your Caddy container's volumes:

volumes:
  - /srv/sites:/srv/sites:ro

Copy the 404 page to your server. Feel free to edit assets/404.html to add your own contact info, and edit toss_cli/templates/markdown_page.html to customize the Markdown rendering theme before installing:

scp assets/404.html user@your-server:/srv/sites/404.html

Then restart Caddy:

# assuming systemd
sudo systemctl reload caddy
# or if using Docker
docker compose up -d caddy

Enabling visit stats

toss stats parses Caddy's JSON access logs over SSH. Note that this required Caddy logging and thus is optional.

Add a log block to your Caddy site block:

share.yourdomain.com {
    log {
        output file /var/log/caddy/access.log
        format json
    }
    root * /srv/sites
    ...
}

If running Caddy in Docker, mount the log directory in your docker-compose.yml:

volumes:
  - /var/log/caddy:/var/log/caddy

Create the log directory and make it readable by your SSH user (run on server):

sudo mkdir -p /var/log/caddy
sudo chmod o+rx /var/log/caddy
# after the first restart, also:
sudo chmod o+r /var/log/caddy/access.log

Restart Caddy, then re-run toss init and enter the log path (default: /var/log/caddy/access.log).

Local CLI

Once the server is configured, install toss:

uv tool install toss-cli

Once toss is installed, run the interactive setup wizard once:

toss init

This will prompt you for your server details, validate SSH connectivity, and save a config file at ~/.config/toss/config.toml.

Note

Re-run toss init at any time to update your configuration. If you prefer to edit it manually, it uses the following format:

host = "user@my-server"
domain = "share.mydomain.com"
remote_path = "/srv/sites"
slug_length = 6
log_path = "/var/log/caddy/access.log"  # optional, needed for toss stats

Usage

# deploy a Markdown file, an HTML file, or a directory
toss deploy path/to/file.md
toss deploy path/to/page.html
toss deploy path/to/site/

# custom slug and title (for Markdown files)
toss deploy report.md --slug my-report
toss deploy report.md --title "My Report"

# build then deploy
toss deploy . --build "npm run build"
toss deploy . --build "npm run build" --out dist

# skip confirmation prompts (useful for scripts)
toss deploy path/to/site/ --slug my-site -y
toss rm <slug> -y

# list all deployments
toss list

# hide (makes URL return 404) and unhide
toss hide <slug>
toss unhide <slug>

# permanently delete
toss rm <slug>

# show visit stats
toss stats <slug>

# machine-readable JSON output
toss --json deploy path/to/site/
toss --json list
toss --json stats <slug>