simple static site generator

`mkws`

Quickstart

On a Linux machine, in a terminal:


curl mkws.sh
| tar -xzvf -


mv ws.sh example.com && cd example.com


echo "hello, world" > index.upphtml


bin/mkws https://example.com

Binaries for OpenBSD also available

Read The Full Docs

Features

Small Just ~30 lines of sh and ~400 lines of C!
Powerful Uses sh code as a templating language!
️Extensible Can use any UNIX utility in its templates!
Zero Config Script your static site generator instead of configuring it!
No package manager Just download and start hacking!
Optional JS Add JS to your project only if you prefer!

What people are saying

kalviter

customised it to autogenerate a /blog page for me and an RSS feed. Not only is it by far the ssg I feel most empowered with, it's taught me lots about writing shell scripts and it makes a very pretty website. nice job with i
hkt

I love it. I've wanted something like this ever since nanoblogger died. Cheers.
mbucc

Thanks for making mkws!
BenWibking

That sounds beautiful
ervin

OK, super tiny and simple. This looks like a nice alternative for the big ones like Jekyll or Hugo.
Dight67

I like it a lot
Arafel

I was just thinking about looking for something like this only a hour ago. I hate front end web dev. I'll be using it for a django project I'm working on if it suits. Thanks.
jmbenfield

Simple & clean, nice job. I love the description btw: "simple static site generator", no fluff just straight to the point lol.
j3s

[...]i am a HUGE fan of mkws![...]
Apos

Pretty cool! Never realized I could use single quotes in HTML.
vord

This is super cool! It looks like it'd be great to tie in with some of my existing scripts.
cibiliciceanu

mkws is a very pleasant surprise! I migrated from Hugo, because I wanted something simple, straightforward and minimal. And boy, do I love this!😁Thanks for building it! 🙏
Raphael_A_Bauer

sh as static site generator? Turns out you can create a decent static site generator with basic Linux commands and a couple lines of code. Impressive.
carsten

Finished playing around with mkws. Nice generator. Fast and easy to use. I even managed to get markdown integration.
kiraemclean

Looks super cool thanks!! I’ll check it out.
oxalorg

mkws looks really interesting, I'll check it out :D
jlj

Finally started playing around with mkws, @adi@twtxt.net! Lots of fun! :-)
lohn

I can’t express how happy I am to have a decent shell SSG. You are now truly one of my heroes.
hrcerq

hmm cool
pekman

very cool
eklausmeier

mkws is to be considered a proof-of-concept
mckinley

The best parts of mkws are the simplicity and the ability to tweak the script for your use case. Putting everything in one binary or adding a bunch of extra features like a web server would add unnecessary complication.
eldersnake

mkws for mine is both small and minimal, but not remotely limiting, and packs a punch because sh works surprisingly well as a templating language.
proycon

mkws uses shell scripting as templating, which is not a syntactic improvement
citizen428

Love the idea of mkws! Together with a class-less CSS lib like new.css this seems like a great way to get some content online fast and efficiently.
teddydd

Wow, such simple yet useful idea. Great job! yes [...]I’d like to have it packaged for Void Linux[...] :)
morgangeek

[...]great work [...]! I was looking for something as simple and extensible as mkws, after trying other static site generators like hugo, zola, ... often great but too difficult to customize
tomolt

I like the general idea. The more I think about it, shell script is sort of a natural fit for templating.[...]Your code is great. It's very concise and only does what it needs to do.
augmentedtree

All kinds of nope. Dynamic typing being the preference of web devs is bad, but stringly typed is insanely worse.
Booty_Bumping

Wrong tool for the job. Edit: looks like this entire thread came to the same conclusion
deleted

What the fuck? Is that supposed to be a feature?
bhaak

Could it be that you misspelled "nanoc"?