StaticBlog

A reusable static blog engine for Elixir. Generates a complete website from markdown files with syntax highlighting, RSS feed, sitemap, SEO structured data, and a Daring Fireball-inspired default template. Includes a Micropub/XML-RPC editing server for MarsEdit integration and a publisher that syncs the built site to Cloudflare R2.

Each blog is its own Mix project that depends on :static_blog as a library. Content lives in priv/posts/, templates are swappable via a behaviour, and all configuration is under the :static_blog application key.

Quick start

Generate a new Mix project and add the dependency:

# mix.exs
def deps do
  [
    {:static_blog, "~> 0.1"},
    {:nimble_publisher, "~> 1.1"},
    {:makeup_elixir, "~> 0.16"},
    {:makeup_erlang, "~> 0.1"}
  ]
end

Configure your site in config/config.exs:

import Config

config :static_blog, :app, :my_blog

config :static_blog, :site,
  title: "My Blog",
  tagline: "Writing about things.",
  description: "A personal blog about software engineering.",
  author: "Your Name",
  base_url: "https://blog.example.com",
  language: "en"

Create a post at priv/posts/2026-04-11-hello-world.md:

%{
  title: "Hello World",
  tags: ["intro"],
  description: "My first post."
}
---
Welcome to my blog. This is the first post.

Build and preview:

mix blog.build
mix blog.serve
# Open http://localhost:4000/

Configuration

All configuration lives under the :static_blog application key.

Required

Key	Type	Purpose
`:app`	atom	Consumer OTP application name. Used for `Application.app_dir/2` to locate `priv/posts/` and `priv/static/`.
`:site`	keyword	Site metadata (see below).

Site metadata (`:site`)

Key	Required	Default	Purpose
`:title`	yes	--	Site name, used in masthead, `<title>`, RSS, and structured data.
`:tagline`	yes	--	Subtitle displayed below the site title.
`:description`	yes	--	Meta description for the home page and RSS channel.
`:author`	yes	--	Default author name. Used when a post has no explicit author.
`:base_url`	yes	--	Production URL (no trailing slash). Used for canonical URLs, Open Graph, and RSS links.
`:language`	yes	--	ISO 639-1 language code (e.g. `"en"`).
`:sidebar`	no	`[]`	List of sidebar section maps (see below).
`:colophon_body`	no	generic text	Raw HTML string for the colophon page body.
`:robots_disallow`	no	`[]`	Extra `Disallow:` paths for `robots.txt`.

Sidebar sections

Each sidebar section is a map with a :heading and a list of :links:

config :static_blog, :site,
  # ...other keys...
  sidebar: [
    %{
      heading: "Projects",
      links: [
        %{url: "https://github.com/my-org", label: "My Org", note: "Open source work", rel: "external"},
        %{url: "https://example.com", label: "Example"}
      ]
    },
    %{
      heading: "About",
      links: [
        %{url: "/colophon/", label: "Colophon"},
        %{url: "/feed.xml", label: "RSS feed"}
      ]
    }
  ]

Optional

Key	Default	Purpose
`:template`	`StaticBlog.Template.Default`	Module implementing `StaticBlog.Template` behaviour.
`:blog_module`	`nil`	Module with `all_posts/0` for compile-time posts (e.g. your NimblePublisher module). Falls back to `StaticBlog.RuntimePosts.all/0`.
`:r2`	--	R2 publishing config: `bucket:`, `prefix:`, `region:`. Required only for `mix blog.publish`.
`:r2_env_vars`	`%{}`	Override env var names for R2 credentials. Keys: `:account_id`, `:access_key_id`, `:secret_access_key`. Defaults to `"R2_ACCOUNT_ID"`, `"R2_ACCESS_KEY_ID"`, `"R2_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY"`.
`:auth_token_env_var`	`"BLOG_TOKEN"`	Environment variable name for the Micropub/XML-RPC bearer token.
`:preview_port`	`4000`	Default TCP port for the static preview server (`mix blog.serve` and `mix blog.server`). CLI flags override.
`:api_port`	`4010`	Default TCP port for the Micropub/XML-RPC server (`mix blog.server`). CLI flags override.
`:micropub_url`	`<base_url>/micropub`	Override the Micropub endpoint URL advertised in HTML. Set automatically by `mix blog.server`.

Mix tasks

Command	Purpose
`mix blog.build [--output DIR]`	Generate the static site into `_site/` (default).
`mix blog.serve [--port 4000] [--dir _site]`	Preview the built site with Erlang's `:inets` httpd.
`mix blog.server [--api-port 4010] [--preview-port 4000]`	Start both the static preview server and the Micropub/XML-RPC editing server.
`mix blog.publish [--output DIR] [--skip-build]`	Build and sync to Cloudflare R2.

Post format

Posts are markdown files in priv/posts/ named YYYY-MM-DD-slug.md. The date and slug are parsed from the filename. Metadata is an Elixir map above a --- separator:

%{
  title: "My Post Title",
  author: "Author Name",
  tags: ["elixir", "release"],
  description: "Optional summary for the index page and meta tags.",
  status: "published",
  published: "2026-04-11T12:00:00Z",
  updated: "2026-04-11T14:00:00Z"
}
---
The markdown body starts here.

:title is required.
:author is optional; falls back to site[:author].
:tags defaults to [].
:status defaults to :published. Set to "draft" to exclude from the built site (drafts are still visible in MarsEdit).
:published and :updated are optional ISO 8601 timestamps. Default to noon UTC on the filename date.

Template behaviour

Implement StaticBlog.Template to provide custom page rendering:

defmodule MyBlog.Template do
  @behaviour StaticBlog.Template

  @impl true
  def index(posts, site), do: # ... return HTML binary

  @impl true
  def post(post, site), do: # ...

  @impl true
  def category(tag, posts, site), do: # ...

  @impl true
  def colophon(site), do: # ...

  @impl true
  def not_found(site), do: # ...
end

Then configure it:

config :static_blog, :template, MyBlog.Template

The default template (StaticBlog.Template.Default) uses Phoenix components and HEEx, renders a Daring Fireball-inspired default layout with light/dark theme toggle, JSON-LD structured data, and full Open Graph / Twitter Card metadata.

Guides

Workflow -- day-to-day writing, building, and publishing.
MarsEdit configuration -- setting up MarsEdit as an editing client.
Cloudflare R2 setup -- creating a bucket and configuring credentials.

License

Apache 2.0. See LICENSE.md.

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