Getting Started

Inkstead turns a folder of Markdown files into a personal website. The quickest path is:

npx inkstead init my-site
cd my-site
npm install
cp .env.example .env
npm run doctor
npm run dev

During init, Inkstead asks where you want to deploy, whether you want automated publishing, and whether posts should syndicate to social media. You can start small and add more later in site.config.ts.

Open the local URL printed by npm run dev, then edit the starter content:

• content/posts contains dated posts for your homepage and feeds.
• content/pages contains standalone pages like About or Now.
• content/photos contains original photo files you want to keep with the site.

Your First Post

Create a Markdown file in content/posts:

---
title: Hello From My Website
date: 2026-05-10T18:30:00+01:00
---

This is my first Inkstead post.

Run npm run dev and the post appears on the homepage. Posts use dated permalinks by default, such as /2026/05/10/hello-from-my-website/.

Build The Site

When you are ready to generate the static site:

npm run build

The built website is written to dist.

Publish It

If you chose a deployment target during init, publish with:

npm run publish

publish builds the site, deploys it, syndicates any posts that ask to be syndicated, then updates the site again if new syndication links were added.

Before publishing, fill in .env for local publishing. If you chose automated publishing, add the same values as CI secrets or variables.