Project

commandbox-ssg

A static site generator implemented as a CommandBox module — Markdown and CFML templates, layouts, pagination, and a small build pipeline, all driven from the CLI. The predecessor to boxlang-ssg, its pure-BoxLang rewrite.

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CLI-native

Four commands — ssg init, ssg build, ssg watch, ssg serve — installed as an ordinary CommandBox module via box install.

Tidy output

HTML output is run through jSoup to clean up markup before it's written, based on detected content type rather than a manual flag.

Build hooks

onBuildReady(), beforeProcessCollections(), and beforeGenerate() — optional lifecycle hooks in applicationHelper.cfm for custom build logic.

Live rebuild

ssg watch monitors .cfm, .md, .css, .js, and .json files and triggers a rebuild on change.

Installation & quick start

bashbox install commandbox-ssg

bashbox
mkdir my-test-site --cd
echo "### Hello from commandbox-ssg" > index.md
ssg build

Commands

Command	What it does
`ssg init`	Scaffolds the current (empty) directory with the `commandbox-ssg-skeleton` starter app.
`ssg build`	Runs the full pipeline: loads `ssg-config.json`, includes, and global `_data/`, processes collections and pagination, then generates static output. Pass `--showconfig` to print the resolved process/config instead of building, or `--verbose` for extra build logging.
`ssg watch`	Watches the current directory for `.cfm`/`.md`/`.css`/`.js`/`.json` changes (500ms debounce) and runs `ssg build` automatically.
`ssg serve`	Writes a `.htaccess` and `server.json` for serving `_site/` as clean-URL static content (if they don't already exist), then starts a CommandBox static web server.

Build lifecycle hooks

Defining these functions in applicationHelper.cfm lets you run custom code at specific points in the build, and makes any functions you define there available when rendering pages:

Hook	Fires
`onBuildReady()`	Once configuration has been loaded.
`beforeProcessCollections()`	Once template data has been loaded, before collections are processed.
`beforeGenerate()`	After collections and pagination have been processed, before static files are written.

Looking for the BoxLang version? boxlang-ssg is a from-scratch rewrite of the same idea — Markdown/.bxm templates, layouts, collections, pagination — running on the BoxLang CLI directly instead of as a CommandBox module.

Changelog highlights

Selected entries — see the repository for the complete history back to 0.0.5.

Version	Change
`0.2.2`	Removed the `skip_beautify` flag in favor of content-type detection — only HTML files are run through jSoup now.
`0.2.0`	Adopted jSoup to tidy generated output.
`0.1.3`	Excluded `_site/` by default (was breaking passthrough folders containing markdown); fixed pagination parent-template leakage into output; render now uses the `template` cache so `excludeFromCollections` works correctly.
`0.1.1`–`0.1.2`	Added `applicationHelper.cfm` support and the three build lifecycle hooks above.
`0.1.0`	`build` command rewritten; `publishDate` renamed to `date` (defaults to the file's last-modified time); nested global `_data/**.json`; new `--showconfig` flag.
`0.0.6`–`0.0.16`	Windows compatibility fixes, `ssg serve` added, `ssg watch` added, automatic `_includes/` exclusion.