web-bud
A small static website maker built with Node.
- Work
- Javascript development
- Client
- Personal
- Year
- 2025
Feel free to visit the mini-website for web-bud :)
Concept
web-bud was created in reaction to complex npm-based front-end development. I wanted a small, customisable static site generator (SSG) tailored to my needs.
These are the features I prioritised at first:
- build from Markdown files
- URLs follows the folder hierarchy
- live reload
- concatenate (S)CSS files
The initial prototype was used to build the website you're visiting right now. I refined it until other criteria were met, so I could reuse it for other projects and release the tool on its own.
Check out the current features on its mini-website!
Technology
web-bud uses Node http.createServer and chokidar to create a local server that watches and rebuild source files. It grabs user-specified data, reads HTML templates, parses Markdown files, and outputs a static website in a dist folder. The website is then served on localhost and reloads automatically on file changes using an EventSource.
The build command outputs the build once without live-reload code. The CSS file comes with an optional hash-based name for cache busting.
The source code for both the tool and its mini-website is available on Codeberg.
Please contact me or submit an issue if you use it, find a bug, or would like something added!