inkwell

Stable

Markdown-based static blog engine with incremental builds, syntax highlighting, and a live preview server.

Node.jsMarkdownStatic SiteBuild Tools

inkwell is a no-framework static site generator focused entirely on the writing experience. No JSX, no hydration, no component model — just Markdown in, HTML out, fast.

Philosophy

Most static site generators solve the wrong problem. They make it easy to build complex sites when what a blog needs is: fast builds, great typography, and syntax highlighting that doesn't require a PhD.

Features

Incremental builds

inkwell tracks content hashes and only rebuilds pages whose source or dependencies changed. A 500-post blog rebuilds in under 200ms on a change to a single post.

Syntax highlighting

Backed by Shiki, which means VS Code–quality highlighting for 100+ languages using the actual TextMate grammars.

Live preview

The dev server uses WebSockets to push changes to the browser without a full reload. Scroll position is preserved.

Themes

Themes are just CSS files + a set of Handlebars templates. No build step required for themes.

Getting started

npx inkwell new my-blog
cd my-blog
npx inkwell dev

Status

Stable and used for this very site.