zola-npm

Zola is a static site generator (SSG), similar to Hugo, Pelican, and Jekyll. It is written in Rust and uses the Tera template engine, which is similar to Jinja2, Django templates, Liquid, and Twig. Content is written in CommonMark, a strongly defined, highly compatible specification of Markdown.

Official Links

• Website
• Documentation
• Forum
• Github Repo

Why Zola as a NPM package ??

This package provides Node.js bindings for Zola, compiled directly from its source code and exposed via Node-API or standard JavaScript calls. This approach ensures performance close to that of native binaries while offering the convenience of an npm package, making deployment easier across various environments due to Node.js' extensive ecosystem and support.

Usage

Add it as a dependency into your project or a new one, using....

npm i zola-bin

or

npm i -g zola-bin

From CLI

Format: npx zola-bin [args]

args are same as official zola CLI. Additionally, In your project's package.json file, you call it inside a script after adding it as a devDependency.

"scripts": {
    "dev": "zola-bin serve --port 7000 --open",
    "build": "zola-bin build"
}

JavaScript API

import { build, init, check, serve } from "zola-bin";

Each of these methods are a wrapper around the CLI commands. You can refer to the JSdoc of each function or the type definitions on how to use them.

interface BuildOptions {
	baseUrl?: string;
	outputDir?: string;
	force?: boolean;
	drafts?: boolean;
	minify?: boolean;
}
export declare function build(rootDir: string, configFile?: string, options?: BuildOptions): void;

interface ServeOptions {
	interface: string;
	port: number;
	outputDir?: string;
	force: boolean;
	baseUrl?: string;
	open: boolean;
	storeHtml: boolean;
	drafts: boolean;
	fast: boolean;
	noPortAppend: boolean;
	extraWatchPaths: Array<string>;
}
export declare function serve(rootDir: string, configFile?: string, options?: ServeOptions): void;

export declare function init(name: string, force?: boolean): void;

interface checkOptions {
	basePath: string | undefined | null;
	baseUrl: string | undefined | null;
	drafts: boolean;
	skipExternalLinks: boolean;
}
export declare function check(rootDir: string, configFile?: string, options?: checkOptions): void;

Getting Started with Create Zola Site

With NPM installed, you can quickly setup a new Zola site with the following command:

npx create-zola-site -n {NAME}

This will create a new directory {NAME} and initializes the necessary files in it. Note that the site created using this process depends on Node.js, so you might see package.json and node_modules in the directory. This doesn't mean it any works different than actual template initialized by Zola. But This template will simplify the process of creating, building and deploying a new site.

if you already have a existing site, you can add the zola-bin NPM package to make it work same as the one created with create-zola-site.

npm init
npm i -D zola-bin

And then you can add the following script to your package.json file:

"scripts": {
    "dev": "zola-bin serve --open",
    "build": "zola-bin build",
}

FAQ

• What is the difference between Zola and create-zola-site template ?

  • Nothing, directory structure is pretty much the same and works the same.
  • create-zola-site template creates extra files - package.json and node_modules, with zola-bin npm package as a devDependency, which builds bindings from the source code and exposes them as node.js function calls.

• Why would I use this instead of the official one ?

  • Because for few who are used to NPM, this package makes it feel more like its a part of NPM ecosystem.
  • Easyily deploy the sites since Node.js and NPM are accepted by most of the hosting services.
  • Simple installation and usage.