◁ Dead Simple Blog Generator

README - Getting Started with DSBG

How to install and use Dead Simple Blog Generator.

DSBG is a minimalist, single-binary static site generator written in Go. It transforms a directory of Markdown and HTML files into a clean, modern, and fast blog. It’s designed to be simple to use, highly configurable, and easy to deploy.

Fast: Single binary, no dependencies needed at runtime.
Simple: Write content in Markdown, run one command, get a website.
Modern: Includes a responsive design, dark mode, code highlighting, and MathJax support.
Integrated Social Sharing: Built-in, optimized sharing for X, Mastodon, Bluesky, Threads, Facebook, Reddit, LinkedIn, Telegram, and Hacker News.
Feature-Rich: Includes tag filtering, live search (Fuse.js), RSS feed generation, and easy content templating.

This README itself is an example of a page generated by DSBG. You can see it live here.

Quick Start

1. Installation

Option A: Pre-built Binary

Download the latest pre-built binary for your operating system from the GitHub Releases page.

Option B: Go Install

If you have Go installed, you can build and install DSBG with a single command:

go install github.com/tesserato/dsbg@latest

2. Create Content

Create a directory for your content (e.g., my-blog-content/) and add a Markdown file.

my-blog-content/2025-11-07-hello-world.md:

---
title: Hello, World!
description: This is my very first post using DSBG.
tags: [Welcome, Go, Tech]
coverImagePath: cover.jpg
---

This is the content of my first post. It's that simple!

You can include an image like this (place `cover.jpg` in the same folder):

![A beautiful cover image](cover.jpg)

3. Generate Your Site

Run the dsbg command, pointing it to your content directory.

dsbg -input-path my-blog-content/ -output-path public/ -title "My Awesome Blog"

This will generate a complete static website in the public/ directory.

4. Preview Your Site (Watch Mode)

For live development, use the -watch flag. This starts a local web server and automatically rebuilds your site whenever you save a change.

dsbg -input-path my-blog-content/ -watch

Now, open your browser to http://localhost:666 to see your blog.

Features & Customization

Content Creation

DSBG content files are Markdown (.md) or HTML (.html) files with a frontmatter block at the top, which defines the metadata for the post.

Frontmatter Fields

---
title: The title of your post (required)
description: A short summary of the post (required for previews)
created: 2025-11-07 # Optional: uses file date if missing
updated: 2025-11-08 # Optional: uses file date if missing
coverImagePath: path/to/image.jpg # Optional: relative to the markdown file
tags: [tag1, tag2, "Multi-word Tag"] # Optional: for filtering and sharing
url: https://external-link.com # Optional: for Hacker News to link to an external site
---

Special `PAGE` Tag

If you add the tag PAGE, DSBG will treat the article as a static page (like an “About Me” page). It will appear in the main navigation bar at the top of the index instead of in the article list.

Command-Line Flags

Use flags to configure your site’s appearance and functionality. Run dsbg -h for a full list.

Flag	Description	Default
`-title`	The main title of your blog.	“Blog”
`-description`	A description for the homepage (supports Markdown).	“This is my blog”
`-input-path`	Directory containing your content files.	“content”
`-output-path`	Directory where the static site will be generated.	“public”
`-base-url`	The final URL of your site (e.g., `https://username.github.io`).	""
`-watch`	Enable live preview server and automatic rebuilds on file changes.	`false`
`-theme`	Set a color theme (`default`, `dark`, `clean`, `colorful`).	“default”
`-sort`	Article sort order (e.g., `date-created`, `reverse-title`).	“date-created”
`-css-path`	Path to a custom CSS file to override the theme.	""
`-favicon-path`	Path to a custom `favicon.ico` file.	""

DSBG automatically adds profile links and optimized share buttons. Set your handles using these flags:

Flag	Example Handle
`-x-handle`	`tesserato`
`-bluesky-handle`	`tesserato`
`-threads-handle`	`tesserato`
`-mastodon-handle`	`tesserato`
`-reddit-handle`	`tarjano`
`-facebook-handle`	`your.profile`
`-linkedin-handle`	`your-profile-id`
`-telegram-handle`	`tesserato`
`-hackernews-handle`	`dsbg_user`

Markdown Copy Button

Every article includes a “Copy Markdown” button, which copies a clean, formatted summary of the post to the clipboard, perfect for sharing on platforms like Discord or GitHub.

Content Templating

Quickly scaffold a new post using the template command.

# Creates a new .md file in the current directory with pre-filled frontmatter
dsbg -template -title "My New Post" -tags "Go, Example"

Run dsbg -template -h for all available template flags.

Deployment

The generated output directory (e.g., public/) contains a complete, self-contained static website. You can deploy it to any static hosting service, such as:

Simply upload the contents of the output directory to your host.

Contributing

This project is open-source. Contributions, bug reports, and feature requests are welcome! Please feel free to open an issue or submit a pull request on the GitHub repository.

Blogs using DSBG

The Fortnightly Tambourine

My personal blog, and the motivation for DSBG. If you want to know more about why I made this, check out Why I made yet another blog generator.