An11ty Template

This is the default template used by An11ty.

The behaviour of an11ty is to overwrite template files with your files, instead of merging them. This default site has a lot of functionality packed in, and you can extend it in many ways without needing to overwrite files.

Extending .eleventy.js

Instead of rewriting the .eleventy.js configuration file, name your file .an11ty.js and it will be run like the normal 11ty configuration file, after the base one is run. (If you need it to run before, name it .an11ty-before.js instead. Or do both.)

Example of adding a single filter:

// .an11ty.js (in your site's folder)
module.exports = function (eleventyConfig) {
	eleventyConfig.addFilter('uppercase', (string) => {
		return string.toUpperCase();
	});
};

If you return a configuration object, for example to change the returned templateFormats list, your object will be merged with the default ones using a non-recursive Object.assign.

This means to add a new template format, since it's an array, you would need to return the full updated array.

Example of only changing the HTML template engine:

// .an11ty.js (in your site's folder)
module.exports = function () {
	return {
		htmlTemplateEngine: 'pug'
	};
};

Roadmap

image resizing stuff? https://github.com/image-size/image-size

A starter repository showing how to build a blog with the Eleventy static site generator.

Demos

• Netlify
• GitHub Pages
• Remix on Glitch

Deploy this to your own site

These builders are amazing—try them out to get your own Eleventy site in a few clicks!

• Get your own Eleventy web site on Netlify
• Get your own Eleventy web site on Vercel

Getting Started

1. Clone this Repository

git clone https://github.com/11ty/eleventy-base-blog.git my-blog-name

2. Navigate to the directory

cd my-blog-name

Specifically have a look at .eleventy.js to see if you want to configure any Eleventy options differently.

3. Install dependencies

npm install

4. Edit _data/metadata.json

5. Run Eleventy

npx eleventy

Or build and host locally for local development

npx eleventy --serve

Or build automatically when a template changes:

npx eleventy --watch

Or in debug mode:

DEBUG=* npx eleventy

Implementation Notes

• about/index.md shows how to add a content page.
• posts/ has the blog posts but really they can live in any directory. They need only the post tag to be added to this collection.
• Add the nav tag to add a template to the top level site navigation. For example, this is in use on index.njk and about/index.md.
• Content can be any template format (blog posts needn’t be markdown, for example). Configure your supported templates in .eleventy.js -> templateFormats.
  • Because css and png are listed in templateFormats but are not supported template types, any files with these extensions will be copied without modification to the output (while keeping the same directory structure).
• The blog post feed template is in feed/feed.njk. This is also a good example of using a global data files in that it uses _data/metadata.json.
• This example uses three layouts:
  • _includes/layouts/base.njk: the top level HTML structure
  • _includes/layouts/home.njk: the home page template (wrapped into base.njk)
  • _includes/layouts/post.njk: the blog post template (wrapped into base.njk)
• _includes/postlist.njk is a Nunjucks include and is a reusable component used to display a list of all the posts. index.njk has an example of how to use it.

Credits

Highly inspired by https://github.com/hankchizljaw/hylia