Folia

A little more joy in publishing.

Folia is a fast static site generator written in Rust. It turns a git repository of Markdown, templates and one configuration file into a site you can host anywhere.

[!IMPORTANT] Folia is fully vibe coded: an AI assistant (Claude) writes all of its code, tests, scripts and docs, and the maintainer directs and reviews the work. It is tested, not audited, so expect rough edges, and it is provided as is, without warranty, under the MIT license. It was started for one website, and you are welcome to use it for yours. The full story is in the disclaimer and About Folia.

Why Folia

I started Folia to replace Jekyll on my own site, ggirelli.info, and kept the parts I wanted: a build that is quick enough to stay out of the way, one coherent workflow from a Markdown file to a published page, and a site that is plain files in a git repository that you own. It is not a drop-in Jekyll replacement, and it is not trying to be everything. It is aimed at people who write a blog, short notes and a digital garden and want one tool for all three.

Highlights

• Fast feedback. folia serve builds your site, serves it and rebuilds when a file changes, writing only the files that changed and reloading the browser.
• Markdown content. Posts, notes and pages are Markdown files with front matter, with syntax highlighting and a table of contents when you ask for one.
• Four collections. Folia has a blog, a microblog (notes, likes, bookmarks and RSVPs), a digital garden with wiki-links and backlinks, and pages with URLs you choose.
• Templates you control. Pages are rendered by MiniJinja templates (Jinja-style syntax) that you own and edit.
• The usual outputs. Atom feeds, a sitemap, search data, redirects, a 404 page and Sass compilation, all written for you. Drafts and scheduled posts stay out of a build until you ask.

Quick start

You need git, because Folia reads each file's last-modified date from its history, and Dart Sass 1.100.0 only if your site has Sass stylesheets. To install Folia, download the Linux x86_64 tarball from the releases page (not every release has one yet), or build it with a Rust toolchain:

cargo install --git https://github.com/ggirelli/folia-web folia --locked

Then try the example site, which has one of everything:

git clone https://github.com/ggirelli/folia-web.git
folia serve --site folia-web/examples/minimal-site     # open http://127.0.0.1:4000/
folia build --site folia-web/examples/minimal-site --dest /tmp/folia-example

Install has the other ways to install, and Your first site makes a site of your own.

Documentation

The documentation is at https://ggirelli.github.io/folia-web/, and in docs/:

• Install and Your first site
• Build and deploy, and the guides to writing content and templates
• The reference: command line, configuration
• Migrating from Jekyll and differences from Jekyll
• About Folia

Status and contributing

Folia is pre-1.0 (see the release notes). The build, folia serve, the four collections and their outputs are what it was made for and are covered by its checks. The URL prefixes of the collections (/blog, /dg, /micro) are fixed, there are no plugins or user-defined collections, and some output differs from Jekyll's on purpose or by a known limitation. Linux x86_64 is the supported platform.

Bug reports and ideas are welcome as GitHub issues. Changes follow CONTRIBUTING.md. If Folia is useful to you, you can support its upkeep through GitHub Sponsors or Ko-fi; that buys no support, features or warranty.