Content

Each file in content/ becomes a page, an output file, a data module, or a copied file. The path of a file in content/ sets its URL.

File types

Each content file can start with a frontmatter block. See Frontmatter.

Page URLs

A page's URL path is its path in content/ without the extension, with a trailing slash. An index file gets the path of its folder. bongo writes each page to an index.html file in the folder of that path.

Custom URLs

Set url in the frontmatter to give a page another path. bongo adds the trailing slash and writes index.html in that folder. A path that ends in .html writes that exact file.

A custom url must be a path, not a full URL. Output files cannot set url: rename the file to change its path.

Most static hosts serve 404.html for a path that does not exist. Give your 404 page url: /404.html so that the build writes that file. The dev server uses 404.html or 404/index.html as the body of its 404 responses.

$page.path is the URL path, such as /blog/post/. $page.url is the absolute URL, made from $site.url and the path. When $site.url has a subpath, both include it. For https://example.com/blog/, content/post.md has the path /blog/post/ and the URL https://example.com/blog/post/. Thus href="{{ page.path }}" works on any site. See publicPath.

Sections

A page's section is the folder of its file, relative to content/:

$page.section holds the section. $section holds every page in the section of the current page, sorted by path. An index file is in the section of its own folder. Thus on a blog index, $section also holds the index page. The starter blog skips it:

{{#each $section as post}}
{{#if post.path !== $page.path}}
  <a href="{{ post.path }}">{{ post.title }}</a>
{{/if}}
{{/each}}

Tags

A page gets its tags from the tags frontmatter key. The value can be a list or a comma-separated string:

tags: [js, css]

tags: js, css

$page.tags holds the list. $tags holds an array of { tag, pages } entries for the whole build. Use it to list the pages of each tag:

{{#each $tags as entry}}
<h2>{{ entry.tag }}</h2>
<ul>
{{#each entry.pages as page}}
  <li><a href="{{ page.path }}">{{ page.title }}</a></li>
{{/each}}
</ul>
{{/each}}

Drafts

A page is a draft when its frontmatter has draft: true, or a date after the build starts:

---
title: Coming soon
date: 2026-12-01T09:00
---

bongo build leaves each draft out. It writes no file for the draft, and $pages, $section, and $tags do not list it, so a sitemap, a feed, or a data module never sees it. bongo build --drafts builds drafts too. bongo dev builds them, and bongo dev --no-drafts leaves them out, to show what a build ships. See CLI.

draft: false publishes a page whatever its date, such as the page of an event that is still to come.

$page.draft is true for a draft, and so is the draft field of its entry in $pages. Use it to mark a draft while you write:

{{#if $page.draft}}<p class="draft">Draft</p>{{/if}}

Scheduled pages

A page with a date in the future is scheduled: the first bongo build that starts after that moment publishes it. A date with no time is 00:00 UTC, and a time with no offset is in UTC, as $utils.date reads it. For another time zone, give an offset, such as 2026-12-01T09:00+02:00. A date that is not an ISO date, such as TBD, schedules nothing.

A static site publishes nothing by itself, so run a build at that time, for example from a scheduled job in CI. No file has to change: each build reads the clock to know which pages are in, and renders again each page that lists a page that is now published. See Incremental builds.

.hbs content

Content files that end in .hbs are tempura-compiled with the same context as layouts: $site, $page, $pages, $section, $tags, $assets, $utils, $data, plus params as an alias for $page.params. See Variables.

---
title: Archive
summary: Every page of the site.
---
<h1>{{ params.title }}</h1>
<ul>
{{#each $pages as page}}
  <li><a href="{{ page.path }}">{{ page.title }}</a></li>
{{/each}}
</ul>

The current page's own $page.content is empty while its body compiles. It is the value that this compile produces.

Only .hbs content compiles as a template. bongo uses .html content and loader output, such as rendered Markdown, as they are. Markdown can still call partials with elements. See Elements.

Images in content

bongo processes each <img> in a page's content whose src is a relative path. It gives the image a srcset, a width, and a height. The path resolves against the URL of the page. For content/blog/post.md, which is served at /blog/post/, hero.jpg is content/blog/post/hero.jpg. See Content images.