I built a framework: M(e)nimal static site generator

This week I implemented a new javascript framework (or course) 🧪

Well, probably not exactly a full framework, but more a minimal static site generator written with Typescript and Effect 💡

Sandro Maglione

@SandroMaglione

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Menimal static site generator 🤏 HTML + CSS only generated from Markdown files 💁🏼‍♂️ No need of package.json, javascript, or whatever 🪄 Deploy HTML on @vercel with ease

Guillermo Rauch

@rauchg

Pretty funny timing. I came across a really slick project on HN, and it's an `index.html` on @vercel 😁 To answer @deepfates question: ◆ Install our github/gitlab apps and `git push` ◆ Or `echo '<marquee>hi' > index.html && npx vercel`

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It wasn't too difficult after all, this is how I did it 👇

Tech stack

• Typescript: plain Typescript, all bundled and released as a single javascript file on npm
• Effect: all services organized and managed using Effect (convert markdown to html, transform and minimize css, frontmatter, and more)

Setup

Typescript-only project, easy to configure:

• package.json
• tsconfig.json
• src containing ts files
• Extra configurations (if needed) and generated folders

Nowadays it's way easier than ever to create a Typescript project 💁🏼‍♂️

Get started

Goal for this project: make a minimal static site generator 🤏

The key word is Minimal: the focus should be on writing content.

Zero javascript, no html, only content (md files) and styling (css) ☝️

Sounds easy? Well, not exactly 😅

During the implementation many interesting ideas come to mind. It's not always easy to stop adding features 💁🏼‍♂️

I managed well at the end 👇

Implementation

Effect is awesome for writing executable scripts 🔥

• Implement each feature in a separate service
• Connect all the services in the entry file
• Provide dependencies, handle errors, run the app

#!/usr/bin/env node
 
const program = Effect.gen(function* (_) {
  /// 1️⃣ Use all the services to implement the final program
});
 
const MainLive = Layer.mergeAll(
  /// 2️⃣ Collect and provide all dependencies (services implementation)
);
 
const runnable = program.pipe(
  Effect.provide(MainLive)
);
 
const main: Effect.Effect<never, never, void> = runnable.pipe(
  Effect.catchTags({
    /// 3️⃣ Handle all possible errors (logging)
  })
);
 
/// 4️⃣ Run the final app
Effect.runPromise(main).catch(console.error);

All the details of the implementation are defined in separate files 👇

Create and implement a service for each feature: parsing, logging, file system, css

How to generate static sites

The idea is simple:

• Write all the content in markdown files (md)
• Read all the files as string
• Convert markdown to html

Done 💁🏼‍♂️

Map all the markdown files to html pages, that's all

I then added some convenient features:

• static files (robots.txt, favicon.ico)
• Styling (single style.css file)
• Frontmatter
• Check valid links

This is all handled at build time, no javascript in the final website ⏱️

Don't reinvent the wheel

There is a library for everything (especially in javascript 😅)

I didn't implement any parsing, converter, validator, or anything:

"dependencies": {
  "@effect/platform": "^0.43.7",
  "@effect/platform-node": "^0.42.7",
  "@effect/schema": "^0.61.5",
  "effect": "^2.2.3",
  "chalk": "^4.1.2", // 🗳️ Logging
  "gray-matter": "^4.0.3", // 📁 Frontmatter
  "html-minifier": "^4.0.0", // 🤏 Minify html
  "lightningcss": "^1.23.0", // 🤏 Transform css
  "mustache": "^4.2.0", // 🏗️ HTML templates
  "node-html-parser": "^6.1.12", // 🧱 Validate links
  "showdown": "^2.1.0" // 👷 Markdown to HTML
}

These dependencies do the heavy lifting. Effect collects and organizes all together:

const program = Effect.gen(function* (_) {
  const fileSystem = yield* _(FileSystem.FileSystem);
  const css = yield* _(Css.Css);
  const template = yield* _(Template.Template);
  const converter = yield* _(Converter.Converter);
  const siteConfig = yield* _(SiteConfig.SiteConfig);
  const linkCheck = yield* _(LinkCheck.LinkCheck);
 
  yield* _(Effect.logInfo("Start build"));
  /// Do the work 🏗️

Publish library on npm

Last step: bundle everything and publish npx executable script 🚀

Sandro Maglione

@SandroMaglione

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💡 Project update 💡 I published a npx script made with @EffectTS_ 🔥 Entry file that runs Effect ✅ FileSystem ✅ Logging ✅ Static site generator All the details coming next week 🔜

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I used tsup. This was easy as well, just run a single tsup command:

"scripts": {
  "tsc": "tsc -p tsconfig.json",
  "dev": "tsx src/bin.ts",
  "bundle": "tsup && tsx scripts/copy-templates.ts", 
  "upload": "pnpm bundle && npm publish"
}

Note: The hard part was finding the right libraries, make them work well together, and handle all the configuration 🤔

Everything is out there, it's mostly about knowing where to search for things (and ask for help)

I wrote a complete step-by-step article on how to bundle and publish an npx command on npm.

This is not always easy, but the result is super satisfying 🔥

Takeaways

• You can build anything: it's all about managing complexity and use the right tools 🛠️
• No need to be complicated: there is probably a library out there that already solved the same problem
• Effect is the ultimate meta-library: ideal to manage and organize all dependencies in any app
• Going minimal pays off: start with the basics, then add features later if necessary

You can read the full code on the open source repository 👇

I plan to add more features as needed in the future (and share all the progress of course 💡)

See you next 👋