A no-nonsense static CMS (blog builder) for people who like to write and/or tinker.
Named after the Can song.
See it live at scottfromny.com/blog
If you work in marketing or communications, you've probably lost hours of your life to WordPress plugins, themes, Squarespace limitations, or some agency's proprietary CMS that requires a support ticket to change a comma. (I am currently experiencing this, and this project was made partially out of such frustrations.)
Moonshake is what I built instead: a single Python script that turns a folder of Markdown files into a complete, deployable blog. No dashboard, no database, no monthly fees. You write in whatever editor you like (I use Obsidian), run one command, and get a static site ready to upload.
Hosting is free. Because it's just HTML files, you can deploy to Cloudflare Pages, Netlify, GitHub Pages, or any static host. I use Cloudflare Pages and pay nothing. Big ups to Cloudflare Pages!
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Converts Markdown posts to clean, SEO-ready HTML. (Also AEO/GEO, if that's your steez.)
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Handles images automatically — drop them anywhere in your posts folder, Moonshake finds, copies, and rewrites the paths
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Builds a paginated blog index, RSS feed, sitemap.xml, and llms.txt
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Generates full Open Graph, Twitter Card, and Schema.org structured data on every post
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Optional newsletter signup form (via Buttondown)
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Configurable navigation links
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moonshake initscaffolds a complete new project in seconds, including a starter stylesheet -
--drymode to preview every change before writing a single file -
Auto-generates a timestamped zip of your site after every build, ready to upload
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Draft support — set
draft: truein any post to hide it from builds -
Works great with Obsidian (including
![[wiki image]]syntax) but only requires Markdown files — use any editor you like -
Honestly, it just lets you focus on writing instead of worrying about bits and bobs. But if you wanna worry about bits and bobs, there's plenty to worry about.
Above: What a Moonshake post looks like when written in Obsidian
- Python 3.11+ (or Python 3.9–3.10 with
pip install tomli) pip install pyyaml markdown
Download the script and make it executable:
curl -o moonshake https://raw.githubusercontent.com/scottsteinhardt/moonshake/main/moonshake
chmod +x moonshake
mv moonshake /usr/local/bin/Install Python dependencies:
pip install pyyaml markdownVerify it works:
moonshake --helpmkdir my-blog && cd my-blog
moonshake initThis creates:
my-blog/
├── moonshake.toml ← your configuration
├── posts/
│ └── hello-world.md ← your first sample post
└── site/
└── blog/
└── assets/
└── style.css ← starter stylesheet
Open moonshake.toml and fill in your name, site URL, and any nav links you want. Then:
moonshake --dry # preview what would be built
moonshake # build your siteYour site is now in the site/ folder, and a ready-to-upload zip has been created in the parent directory.
Posts are Markdown files in your posts/ folder. Each file starts with a YAML frontmatter block:
---
title: My Post Title
date: 2026-01-15
description: A short summary shown on the blog index and in search results.
feature_image: cover.jpg # optional hero image
tags: [writing, ideas] # optional
draft: true # hides the post from builds
---
Your post content goes here. Standard Markdown — headings, links, code blocks, tables, footnotes, all supported.Frontmatter fields:
| Field | Required | Notes |
|---|---|---|
title |
yes | Becomes the page <title> and post heading |
date |
no | YYYY-MM-DD. Uses file modification time if omitted |
slug |
no | URL slug. Auto-generated from filename if omitted |
description |
no | Meta description. First paragraph used if omitted |
feature_image |
no | Path to a hero image. Appears at the top of the post and as og:image |
tags |
no | List of tags, used in structured data |
draft |
no | true skips the post entirely |
Images: Drop images anywhere in your posts folder (same directory, a subfolder, anywhere). Reference them by filename:
Moonshake finds the file, copies it to the right place in your site, and rewrites the path. You don't have to think about it.
If you use Obsidian, ![[image.png]] wiki-image syntax works too.
Your moonshake.toml controls everything. Here's the full reference — see moonshake.example.toml for a ready-to-copy template with comments.
| Key | Description |
|---|---|
posts |
Path to your Markdown posts directory |
site |
Path to the output directory for your built site |
| Key | Description |
|---|---|
base_url |
Your site's root URL, no trailing slash |
title |
Your name or blog name |
subtitle |
Short tagline shown under the title on the index page |
description |
Blog index meta description |
rss_description |
RSS feed description (falls back to description) |
author |
Your name, used in bylines and copyright |
email |
Your email, used in structured data |
locale |
Defaults to en_US |
css_url |
URL path to your stylesheet (must exist in the site directory) |
default_og_image |
Fallback social sharing image, relative to base_url |
excluded_slugs |
List of slugs in /blog/ that are not posts |
Used for Schema.org structured data. All fields optional.
| Key | Description |
|---|---|
location_city |
Your city |
location_region |
Your state or region |
location_country |
Defaults to US |
linkedin |
Full URL |
github |
Full URL |
bluesky |
Full URL |
twitter |
Full URL |
mastodon |
Full URL |
Remove this section entirely to disable the signup form. Currently supports Buttondown.
| Key | Description |
|---|---|
username |
Your Buttondown username |
heading |
Form heading text |
blurb |
Short description above the email field |
Add one [[nav]] block per link. They appear in the order listed.
| Key | Description |
|---|---|
label |
Link text |
href |
URL |
css_class |
CSS class, defaults to nav-link |
post_only |
true → only shows on individual post pages |
index_only |
true → only shows on the blog index |
external |
true → adds target="_blank" rel="noopener" |
When you run moonshake init, a complete starter stylesheet is written to site/blog/assets/style.css. It's a dark-mode design using Lora (serif, for headings and post titles) and Inter (sans-serif, for body and UI).
Customize it freely — it's yours. Change the colors, swap the fonts, adjust the layout. The CSS uses custom properties (--color-accent, --font-serif, etc.) so most changes are a one-line edit at the top of the file.
Cloudflare Pages hosts static sites for free with no traffic limits. Every time you run moonshake, it generates a zip file in the parent directory of your site named something like UPLOAD THIS AS OF 2026-04-24 2:18 PM.zip. That's your deploy artifact.
First time setup:
- Go to Cloudflare Pages and sign up for a free account
- Click Create a project → Direct Upload
- Name your project (this becomes your subdomain:
yourproject.pages.dev) - Upload the zip file Moonshake generated
- Click Deploy
Your blog is live. Cloudflare gives you a free *.pages.dev subdomain instantly, and you can connect a custom domain in the dashboard for free.
Subsequent deploys:
- Run
moonshake— it builds the site and generates a new zip - Go to your Cloudflare Pages project → Deployments → Upload
- Drop in the new zip
That's it. The whole deploy takes about 30 seconds.
Custom domain:
In your Cloudflare Pages project, go to Custom domains and add your domain. If your domain is already on Cloudflare (DNS), it connects automatically. If not, follow Cloudflare's instructions to update your nameservers — it's a one-time step.
moonshake init Set up a new project in the current directory
moonshake Build your site
moonshake --dry Preview what would be built without writing anything
moonshake --config PATH Use a specific config file instead of moonshake.toml
If you have existing blog posts as HTML files (migrated from WordPress, Ghost, or another system), Moonshake can incorporate them. Place the existing HTML in your site's /blog/ directory, one folder per post (e.g., site/blog/my-old-post/index.html). Moonshake reads their metadata from the HTML and includes them in the index, feed, and sitemap alongside your new Markdown posts. If you write a new Markdown post with the same slug as an existing HTML post, the Markdown version wins.
MIT