Configuration

Complete guide to configuring GenGen with all available options

GenGen Configuration

GenGen uses YAML configuration files to customize your site's behavior. This guide covers all available configuration options and their usage.

Configuration Files

GenGen looks for configuration files in your site's root directory:

config.yaml or config.yml - Main configuration file
config.development.yaml - Development-specific overrides
config.production.yaml - Production-specific overrides

File Format

Configuration files use YAML format:

# Site Information
title: "My GenGen Site"
url: "https://example.com"

# Build Settings
destination: public
theme: default

# Content Processing
permalink: date
markdown_extensions:
  - .md
  - .markdown

Core Configuration Options

Site Information

Basic information about your site:

# Site title (used in templates and metadata)
title: "My GenGen Site"

# Site URL (used for absolute URLs)
url: "https://example.com"

# Site description
description: "A static site built with GenGen"

# Site author
author: "Your Name"

# Additional site data (accessible as site.* in templates)
site:
  email: "contact@example.com"
  social:
    twitter: "@username"
    github: "username"

Build Settings

Control how GenGen processes and outputs your site:

# Source directory (default: current directory)
source: "."

# Output directory (default: "public")
destination: "public"

# Theme to use (default: "default")
theme: "default"

Directory Structure

Customize where GenGen looks for different types of content:

# Posts directory (default: "_posts")
post_dir: "_posts"

# Drafts directory (default: "_drafts") 
draft_dir: "_drafts"

# Collections directory (default: "")
# When set, collections, posts, and drafts are read from this directory.
collections_dir: "collections"

# Themes directory (default: "_themes")
themes_dir: "_themes"

# Layouts directory (default: "_layouts")
layout_dir: "_layouts"

# Plugins directory (default: "_plugins")
plugin_dir: "_plugins"

# Sass/SCSS directory (default: "_sass")
sass_dir: "_sass"

# Data files directory (default: "_data")
data_dir: "_data"

# Static assets directory (default: "assets")
asset_dir: "assets"

# Templates directory (default: "_templates")
template_dir: "_templates"

# Includes directory (default: "_includes")
include_dir: "_includes"

Collections

Collections let you group content in underscore-prefixed folders like _docs or _tutorials.

collections:
  docs:
    output: true
    permalink: "/:collection/:path/"
  tutorials:
    output: false

defaults:
  - scope:
      type: "docs"
    values:
      layout: "doc"

output: true writes collection items to the destination. When output is false, items are still available in Liquid via site.collections and site..

Collections can also be declared as a list:

collections:
  - docs
  - tutorials

Publish Controls

# Include future-dated content in output
future: false

# Include items with published: false
unpublished: false

# Require front matter on extensionless posts
strict_front_matter: false

Safe Mode (Plugins)

Safe mode disables Lua plugins by default. This is useful for locked-down environments or shared builds.

# Disable Lua plugins unless explicitly allowlisted
safe: true

# Allowlist Lua plugins that may run in safe mode
safe_plugins:
  - "trusted-plugin"
  - "theme-banner"

You can also enable safe mode from the CLI:

gengen build --safe

File Processing

Control which files are processed and how:

# Files to include in processing (glob patterns)
include:
  - "_posts/special/*.md"
  - "hidden-file.txt"

# Files to exclude from processing (glob patterns)
exclude:
  - "README.md"
  - "config.*"
  - "node_modules"
  - ".git"

# Markdown file extensions to process
markdown_extensions:
  - ".md"
  - ".markdown"
  - ".mdown"

# Files to completely block from access
block_list:
  - "secret.txt"
  - "private/*"

Permalink Configuration

Control how URLs are generated for your content:

Built-in Permalink Structures

# Date-based permalink (default)
permalink: "date"
# Generates: /posts/2024/01/15/post-title.html

# Pretty URLs (directory structure)
permalink: "pretty" 
# Generates: /posts/2024/01/15/post-title/

# Ordinal day of year
permalink: "ordinal"
# Generates: /posts/2024/015/post-title.html

# Week-based
permalink: "weekdate"
# Generates: /posts/2024/W02/Sun/post-title.html

# Categories and title only
permalink: "none"
# Generates: /posts/post-title.html

Custom Permalink Patterns

Create custom URL structures using tokens:

# Custom pattern with date tokens
permalink: "blog/:year/:month/:title/"

# Simple blog structure
permalink: "posts/:title/"

# Category-based structure
permalink: ":categories/:title.html"

Available Tokens

:year - 4-digit year (2024)
:month - 2-digit month (01-12)
:day - 2-digit day (01-31)
:title - Slugified post title
:categories - Post categories/tags joined with /
:basename - Original filename without extension
:output_ext - Output file extension (.html)

Literal Permalinks

Use exact paths for specific pages:

# In front matter
permalink: "/about/"           # Creates /about/index.html
permalink: "/contact.html"     # Creates /contact.html
permalink: "custom-page"       # Creates /custom-page/index.html

Content Configuration

Posts and Pages

# Output directory for posts
output:
  posts_dir: "posts"

# Date format for parsing post dates
date_format: "yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss"

# Whether to publish draft posts
publish_drafts: false

Notes:

Posts can live in subdirectories under _posts/.
Filenames do not need a date prefix. Dates are read from front matter, or derived from a YYYY-MM-DD- filename prefix when present.
If you use date-based permalinks without a date, GenGen falls back to the file modified time.
_index.md files in _posts/ (or any content folder) are treated as directory-level front matter and are not rendered.

Data Files

Data files in _data/ are automatically loaded and available in templates:

GenGen also merges _data from the active theme and any plugins. Precedence is: site _data → theme _data → plugin _data (site overrides theme overrides plugin).

# Custom data can be added directly to config
data:
  navigation:
    - title: "Home"
      url: "/"
    - title: "About" 
      url: "/about/"
  
  footer:
    copyright: "© 2024 My Site"

Pagination Configuration

Configure automatic pagination for posts:

pagination:
  # Enable pagination (default: true)
  enabled: true
  
  # Number of items per page (default: 5)
  items_per_page: 10
  
  # Collection to paginate (default: "posts")
  collection: "posts"
  
  # URL pattern for pagination pages (default: "/page/:num/")
  permalink: "/page/:num/"
  
  # Index page template (default: "index")
  indexpage: "index"

Pagination Template Variables

In your templates, pagination data is available as:





Page  of

Theme Configuration

Using Themes

# Use a built-in or custom theme
theme: "default"

# Theme-specific settings can be added
theme_config:
  color_scheme: "dark"
  show_sidebar: true

Theme Structure

Themes are located in _themes/theme-name/ and can contain:

_layouts/ - Layout templates
_includes/ - Partial templates
_sass/ - Sass/SCSS stylesheets
assets/ - Theme assets (CSS, JS, images)
content/ - Theme pages (front matter files rendered into the site)
config.yaml - Theme-specific configuration

Theme pages render to the same relative path inside the site output. If a site file exists at the same path, the site file wins and the theme page is ignored.

Plugin Configuration

GenGen uses a flexible plugin system that allows you to enable/disable plugins individually or by groups.

Plugin Groups

Plugins are organized into logical groups for easier management:

plugins:
  # Enable plugin groups
  enabled:
    - core          # Essential plugins (Draft, Markdown, Liquid)
    - seo           # SEO plugins (RSS, Sitemap)
    - assets        # Asset processing (Sass, Tailwind)
    - content       # Content enhancement (Pagination, Aliases)
  
  # Disable specific plugins
  disabled:
    - TailwindPlugin  # Disable Tailwind even if assets group is enabled
  
  # Define custom plugin groups
  groups:
    core:
      - DraftPlugin
      - MarkdownPlugin
      - LiquidPlugin
    seo:
      - RssPlugin
      - SitemapPlugin
    assets:
      - SassPlugin
      - TailwindPlugin
    content:
      - PaginationPlugin
      - AliasPlugin
    
    # Custom group example
    blog:
      - MarkdownPlugin
      - LiquidPlugin
      - RssPlugin
      - PaginationPlugin

Individual Plugin Configuration

Each plugin can have its own configuration section:

# RSS feed configuration
rss:
  path: feed.xml
  limit: 20
  full_content: false

# Sitemap configuration
sitemap:
  path: sitemap.xml
  include_posts: true
  include_pages: true

# Sass configuration
sass:
  style: compressed
  source_map: false
  load_paths: ["_sass"]

# Tailwind configuration
tailwind:
  executable: "./tailwindcss"
  input: "assets/css/tailwind.css"
  output: "assets/css/styles.css"

# Pagination configuration
pagination:
  enabled: true
  per_page: 10
  permalink: "/page/:num/"
  title_suffix: " - Page :num"

# Draft publishing
publish_drafts: false

Plugin Management Commands

Use the command line to inspect your plugin configuration:

# Show plugin overview
gengen plugins

# Show all available plugins
gengen plugins --available

# Show only enabled plugins
gengen plugins --enabled

# Show plugin groups
gengen plugins --groups

Configuration Examples

Minimal setup (core only):

plugins:
  enabled:
    - core

Blog setup:

plugins:
  enabled:
    - core
    - seo
    - content

Full-featured site:

plugins:
  enabled:
    - core
    - seo
    - assets
    - content

Custom configuration:

plugins:
  enabled:
    - MarkdownPlugin
    - LiquidPlugin
    - SassPlugin
    - RssPlugin
  disabled: []

Environment-Specific Configuration

Development Configuration

Create config.development.yaml for development-specific settings:

# Development overrides
destination: "_site"
show_drafts: true
url: "http://localhost:4000"

# Development-specific data
site:
  analytics_id: ""  # Disable analytics in development

Production Configuration

Create config.production.yaml for production settings:

# Production overrides
destination: "dist"
url: "https://mysite.com"

# Minification and optimization
sass:
  style: compressed

# Production-specific data
site:
  analytics_id: "GA-XXXXXXXX"

Configuration Precedence

GenGen merges configuration in this order (later values override earlier ones):

Built-in defaults
config.yaml
Environment-specific config (config.development.yaml)
Command-line overrides
Front matter (for individual files)

Complete Example

Here's a comprehensive configuration example:

# Site Information
title: "My Blog"
description: "A personal blog about web development"
author: "Jane Developer"
url: "https://myblog.com"

# Custom site data
site:
  email: "jane@myblog.com"
  social:
    twitter: "@janedeveloper"
    github: "janedeveloper"
  navigation:
    - title: "Home"
      url: "/"
    - title: "About"
      url: "/about/"
    - title: "Blog"
      url: "/blog/"

# Build Settings
theme: "default"
destination: "public"
permalink: "pretty"

# Content Processing
markdown_extensions:
  - ".md"
  - ".markdown"

exclude:
  - "README.md"
  - "package.json"
  - "node_modules"
  - ".git"

include:
  - "_posts/drafts/*.md"

# Pagination
pagination:
  enabled: true
  items_per_page: 8
  permalink: "/page/:num/"

# Output Configuration
output:
  posts_dir: "blog"

# Date Format
date_format: "yyyy-MM-dd"

# Development Settings
publish_drafts: false

Validation and Debugging

GenGen validates your configuration and will show warnings for:

Invalid YAML syntax
Unknown configuration options
Incorrect data types (e.g., string instead of array)
Missing required files or directories

Use the --verbose flag when building to see detailed configuration information:

gengen build --verbose

Migration from Jekyll

GenGen's configuration is largely compatible with Jekyll. Common differences:

Jekyll → GenGen Mappings

Jekyll	GenGen	Notes
`_config.yml`	`config.yaml`	YAML extension preferred
`baseurl`	Use `url`	GenGen handles this automatically
`collections`	Supported	Configure with `collections` + `_collection` folders
`gems`	`plugins`	Different plugin system
`highlighter`	Built into markdown	Automatic syntax highlighting

Unsupported Jekyll Features

Jekyll-specific plugins (implement as GenGen plugins)
Some advanced Liquid filters (basic set supported)

Most Jekyll sites can be migrated by renaming _config.yml to config.yaml and making minor adjustments to unsupported features.