Getting started

Using npx (recommended)

No global install needed — pull the published package from npm:

npx simple-engine@latest init my-site
cd my-site
npm install
npm run dev

Your site is now running at http://localhost:3000.

Global installation

npm install -g simple-engine
simple init my-site
cd my-site
npm install
npm run dev

Add to an existing project

Install from npm as a project dependency:

npm install simple-engine --save-dev

Or pin a version:

npm install simple-engine@2 --save-dev
npx simple-engine@2 --version

Then create simple.config.js, content/, layouts/, and styles/ — or run simple init in an empty folder to scaffold them.

Project structure

my-site/
├── content/              # Your Markdown content
│   ├── index.md
│   ├── about.md
│   ├── blog.md
│   └── blog/
│       └── first-post.md
├── layouts/              # Nunjucks templates
│   ├── base.njk
│   ├── default.njk
│   ├── post.njk
│   ├── blog.njk
│   ├── not-found.njk
│   └── partials/
│       └── head.njk      # SEO meta, Open Graph, JSON-LD
├── styles/
│   └── main.css          # Tailwind v4 entry (`@import "tailwindcss"`)
├── public/               # Static files (copied to output)
├── dist/                 # Built site (generated)
├── simple.config.js
└── package.json

Daily commands

See the CLI reference for all options.