Would like to understand what astro do under the cover

[mac10046]

Hi, I was looking around the current documentation to understand in brief what astro really does when you build your site's using astro.

Would also like to know whether astro is a SPA (Single page application) or a pure SSG or both somehow.

As per Internet reading it looks like a SSG but as per my first project its acting as a SPA .. local routes and stuff like that. So pretty confused whether I am it right or am I missing something in my understanding.

[sarah11918]

Hi @mac10046 !

We are currently rewriting our documentation to help answer those very questions! Astro is an SSG, and a MPA (multi-page application) that uses file-based routing at its core. We have some community contributions to include SPA functions, but in general, Astro uses a "one file creates one page route" (or, with some functions, "one file creates multiple related page routes")

I'm in the process of writing the very introduction for the docs that you seem to be looking for now, but in the mean time, we have updated content about our file system, pages, and components, so if you re-visit https://docs.astro.build then maybe some of the material in those updated "core concepts" will be helpful.

Please also feel free to chat in the Discord at https://astro.build/chat where community members will be more than happy to answer any specific (or general!) questions!

I'm going to close this issue, because writing the information you're asking about is already on my road map, (thank you for showing that it's necessary!) and because I feel you'll get better and quicker responses if you reach out to our community in the Discord, or on Twitter. I'll also include a link here to a playlist of YouTube videos on Astro, how it works, and what problems its intended to address: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsTXcSeAZq8&list=PLowBAHWxr_2DWoVEV688K4IU5r0FjefRF

Please do reach out to continue the discussion!