Markdown Rambler

Yet another opinionated & powerful static site generator.

Turns directories with Markdown files into static websites.

• Based on the remark and rehype ecosystems.
• Powerful and extensible plugins.
• Zero-config with sane defaults to get started.
• Directory structure and file names determine the url's.
• Front Matter in Markdown to override defaults.
• Use a page type to enable different layouts and plugins.
• Easily build layouts around the Markdown-based content and their type.
• Optimize SEO with HTML documents including (OpenGraph) meta tags and structured content (application/ld+json).
• Optimize performance by bundling CSS and JS assets.
• Mark drafts to exclude from lists (yet available with <meta name="robots" content="noindex">)
• Includes SVGO to optimize SVGs assets.
• Writes sitemap.txt.
• Writes RSS feed.
• Writes search index (using MiniMatch).
• Features a --watch mode for auto re-generation.

Showcase

See webpro.nl and github.com/webpro/webpro.nl for an example website powered by Markdown Rambler.

Input

.
└── content
    ├── articles
    │   ├── starting-a-blog.md
    │   ├── writing-a-blogpost.md
    │   └── yet-another-article
    │       ├── index.md
    │       └── image.webp
    ├── blog.md
    └── index.md

Build Script

const rambler = new MarkdownRambler();
rambler.run();

Output

.
└── dist
    ├── articles
    │   ├── starting-a-blog
    │   │   └── index.html
    │   ├── writing-a-blogpost
    │   │   └── index.html
    │   └── yet-another-article
    │       ├── index.html
    │       └── image.webp
    ├── blog
    │   └── index.html
    ├── index.html
    └── sitemap.txt

And all URLs in /sitemap.txt:

https://example.org/
https://example.org/articles/starting-a-blog
https://example.org/articles/writing-a-blogpost
https://example.org/articles/yet-another-article
https://example.org/blog

Tests

See the tests to get an impression of the conversion from Markdown to HTML.

Options

Overview

File Structure & Output

Option	Type	Default value	Description
contentFiles	string | string[]	'**/*'	Include Markdown and assets
contentDir	string | string[]	['content']	Directories containing Markdown
ignorePattern	string	/^(\.|node_modules)/	File pattern(s) to ignore with --watch
publicDir	string	'public'	Directory containing public assets
outputDir	string	'dist'	Output directory
sitemap	boolean	true	Generates sitemap.txt
feed	Feed	false	Generates feed.xml (RSS)
search	Search	false	Generates MiniSearch index

Flags

Option	Type	Default value	Description
verbose	boolean	false	Logs more output about the process
watch	boolean	false	Add watcher to re-process modified files
formatMarkdown	boolean	false	Formats source Markdown files (using Prettier)

Content

Option	Type	Default value	Description
host	string	''	Host (e.g. 'https://example.org')
name	string	''	Website name
language	string	'en'	Website language (e.g. 'fr-BE')
manifest	false | string	false	Link to PWA manifest file
type	TypeFn	page	Add type to each page meta data (e.g. 'article')
defaults	Record<PageType, PageOptions>	undefined	Default meta data for each document

Plugins

In order of exection:

Option	Type	Default value	Description
parsers	Pluggable[]	parsers	Remark parsers
directives	Record<string, any>	undefined	Directives to extend Markdown syntax
remarkPlugins	Pluggable[]	remarkPlugins	Additional remark plugins
remarkRehypeOptions	RemarkRehypeOptions	{}	Options for remark-rehype
rehypePlugins	Pluggable[]	rehypePlugins	Additional rehype plugins
renderers	Pluggable[]	renderers	Plugins to render (stringify) the hast

1. mdast: Markdown Abstract Syntax Tree
2. hast: HyperText (HTML) AST

Feed

type Feed = {
  pathname: string;
  title: string;
  description?: string;
  author?: string;
  tags?: string[];
  filter?: (type: string, vFile: VFile) => boolean;
};

Search

type Search = {
  outputDir?: string;
  filter?: (type: string, vFile: VFile) => boolean;
};

Generates a MiniSearch index file to be used in your client. Here's a minimal example of a client script to use the search index:

(async () => {
  await import('https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/minisearch@4.0.3/dist/umd/index.min.js');
  const searchIndex = await fetch('/_search/index.json').then(response => response.text());
  const index = MiniSearch.loadJSON(searchIndex, { fields: ['title', 'content'] });
  const searchBox = document.querySelector('input[type=search]');
  const search = query => {
    const results = index.search(query, { prefix: true, fuzzy: 0.3 });
    console.log(results);
  };
  searchBox.addEventListener('input', event => {
    search(event.target.value);
  });
})();

The script(s) can be added to e.g. the public folder and its path to the defaults.page.scripts array.

Format Markdown

Set formatMarkdown: true and the following plugins will be applied to the Markdown source files:

• remark-prettier to format the document
• remark-reference-links to turn [text](url) into [text][ref] (and add definitions to the end)
• order-links to order the definitions

Type

type TypeFn = (filename: string, matter: FrontMatter) => PageType;

Example:

{
  type: filename => (filename.match(/^blog\//) ? 'article' : 'page');
}

Defaults

Sets default for each type of page. By default there's only the page type. Example:

const options = {
  defaults: {
    page: {
      layout: '[See "Layout" below]'
      stylesheets: ['/css/stylesheet.css'],
      author: {
        name: 'Lars Kappert',
        href: 'https://www.webpro.nl',
        twitter: '@webprolific'
      },
      publisher: {
        name: 'Lars Kappert',
        href: 'https://www.webpro.nl',
        logo: {
          src: 'https://www.webpro.nl/img/logo-512x512.png'
        }
      },
      icon: {
        src: '/img/logo.svg'
      },
      logo: {
        alt: 'Blog Logo',
        src: '/img/logo.svg',
        href: '/'
      },
      sameAs: ['https://github.com/webpro'],
      layout: () => {},
      prefetch: '/blog'
    }
  }
};

Any Front Matter in the Markdown augments or overrides these defaults.

---
published: 2022-03-05
modified: 2022-04-20
image: /articles/yet-another-article/image.webp
draft: true
---

# Yet Another Article

Lorem ipsum

The merged meta data will be used in the meta tags and structured content, and is available in layouts and directives.

• The published date adds <meta property="article:published_time" content="2022-03-05T00:00:00Z">
• The author.name adds <meta name="author" content="Lars Kappert">
• The prefetch value will add <link rel="prefetch" href="/blog">

See the PageOptions type for details.

Layout

Each page type can have its own layout to wrap the content. Render ${node} somewhere, and use all of the page's meta data that was provided by Markdown Rambler, merged in with the provided default configuration:

import { html } from 'markdown-rambler';

export default (node, meta) => {
  const { logo } = meta;
  return html`
    <header>
      <a href="${logo.href}">
        <img src="${logo.src}" alt="${logo.alt}" />
      </a>
    </header>
    <main class=${meta.class}>${node}</main>
    <footer>© 2022, Lars Kappert</footer>
  `;
};

In this example, the class field of the Front Matter of each Markdown file would be added to the <main> element, while the default.page.class option could serve as a fallback class value.

Plugins

Parsers

The default remark plugins:

• remark-parse
• remark-frontmatter
• table
• remark-directive (also see Directives)

These can be entirely replaced with different parsers, or extended using remarkPlugins.

remark Plugins

Use remarkPlugins to add remark plugins (to work with the mdast before it is converted to hast).

remarkRehypeOptions

Use remarkRehypeOptions to pass options to remark-rehype.

rehype Plugins

The default rehype plugins:

• rehype-autolink-headings (only wraps h2-h6)
• rehype-slug
• rehype-document
• JSON-LD (structured content) in a <script type="application/ld+json">{}</script>.

Use rehypePlugins to add rehype plugins (to work with the hast after it is converted from mdast).

Renderers

• rehype-format
• rehype-stringify

Use the renderers option to replace these default render plugins.

Directives

Directives are a powerful way to extend the Markdown syntax. The (implemented) proposal consists of inline (:), leaf (::) and container (:::) block directives.

::ASIDE

# Header

:::div{.wrapper}

Content with :abbr[HTML]{title="HyperText Markup Language"}

:::

The inline and container directives are readily available. To use a leaf block directive, pass an object with the directive as a key, and a function that returns a hast node. The function is much like an AST visitor function, and adds the vFile argument for convenience:

type DirectiveVisitor = (node: Element, index: number, parent: Parent, vFile: VFile) => Element;

const insertAside = (node, index, parent, vFile) => {
  return h('aside', { class: 'custom' }, 'news');
};

const directives = {
  ASIDE: insertAside
};

This will result in this HTML output:

<aside class="custom">news</aside>
<h1>Header</h1>
<div class="wrapper">Content with <abbr title="HyperText Markup Language">HTML</abbr></div>