About Metalsmith2025 Simple Starter

What is this project?

This is a simple, functional blog starter built with Metalsmith, designed to serve as a learning resource for web developers exploring static site generation. It demonstrates the core concepts of Metalsmith with minimal complexity, making it perfect for beginners while still showcasing the power and flexibility that make Metalsmith a valuable tool in 2025.

Features

• Clean, minimal design focused on content
• Responsive layout that works on all devices
• Blog with pagination and article listings
• Markdown content with frontmatter
• Nunjucks templating
• Optimized build process

Part of a Learning Series

This starter is the companion project to a comprehensive blog series on Metalsmith development, available at glinka.co. The series takes you from the very basics to advanced techniques in a progressive, step-by-step approach:

1. Introduction to Metalsmith - Why Metalsmith is still relevant in 2025
2. Getting Started with Metalsmith - Building your first simple site (using this starter!)
3. Site Structure and Organization - Best practices for project organization
4. Enhancing Your Site with Plugins - Adding functionality through the plugin ecosystem
5. Advanced Templating with Nunjucks - Creating flexible, reusable layouts
6. Nunjucks in Markdown with M+N - Component-based content authoring
7. Structured Content with Sections - Building complex, modular pages
8. Advanced Metalsmith Features - Custom plugins and optimization techniques

Each article in the series builds on the previous ones, allowing you to progressively enhance this starter project with new features and capabilities.

Why Metalsmith?

Metalsmith stands out among static site generators for its simplicity and flexibility. It follows a straightforward approach:

1. Read files from a source directory
2. Transform them using plugins
3. Write the results to a destination directory

This minimalist philosophy gives you complete control over your build process without imposing rigid structures or complex architectures. Whether you're building a simple blog, a documentation site, or a sophisticated marketing platform, Metalsmith adapts to your needs rather than forcing you to adapt to it.

Getting Started

To begin working with this starter:

1. Clone the repository
2. Run npm install to install dependencies
3. Run npm start to build and view the site locally

The project is intentionally kept simple to make it easy to understand and modify. Explore the code, make changes, and watch how Metalsmith transforms your content!