orbit-md

Orbit — a fast static site generator with React-like components in Markdown. Write pages in .md files, use JSX-style tags for UI components, and compile to production-ready HTML.

Install the CLI globally, scaffold a project, and build — just like Create React App.

Install

cargo install orbit-md

Requires Rust 1.70+.

Quick start

orbit init my-site
cd my-site
orbit dev

Open http://127.0.0.1:3000 — edit files in content/ and the site rebuilds automatically.

One-off build without the dev server:

orbit build

Commands

Command	Description
`orbit init <path>`	Scaffold a new project
`orbit init my-site --title "My Blog"`	Init with a custom site title
`orbit build`	Compile Markdown → HTML (`.orbit/`)
`orbit dev`	Local dev server with auto-rebuild on save
`orbit dev --open`	Dev server and open browser
`orbit dev --port 8080`	Dev server on a custom port
`orbit build --config orbit.yaml`	Build with a custom config path
`orbit new page blog/hello`	Create a new page under `content/`

Project structure

After orbit init, your site looks like this:

my-site/
├── orbit.yaml            # Site config
├── content/              # Markdown pages
│   └── index.md
├── components/           # Reusable UI components (Handlebars)
│   ├── Alert.hbs
│   ├── Button.hbs
│   └── Card.hbs
├── templates/            # Page layouts
│   └── base.hbs
└── .orbit/               # Generated HTML (after orbit build)

Write pages with components

In any .md file under content/:

---
title: Welcome
---

<Alert type="info" title="Hello">
You write **Markdown**, not HTML.
</Alert>

<Button href="/docs" label="Get started" />

Components live in components/YourComponent.hbs and are invoked with PascalCase JSX-style tags.

Configuration

orbit.yaml:

title: My Site
source_dir: content
output_dir: .orbit
template_dir: templates
components_dir: components
layout: base.hbs

Publish to crates.io

cargo login          # one-time
cargo publish        # publishes crate `orbit-md`, installs as `orbit`

Users install with cargo install orbit-md and run the orbit command.

Development

This repository is both the Orbit tool source and a demo site:

cargo run -- build          # build the demo site in ./.orbit
cargo test                  # run tests

License

MIT

orbit-md 0.1.0