🚀 LUAX SSG

Static Site Generator built with Lua

LUAX is a lightweight, fast, and modern static site generator built with Lua. It uses the LAX template engine to generate static websites from Markdown content with YAML frontmatter.

Support & Donation

If you find LUAX helpful, consider supporting us:

+ PayPal

+ Buy Me a Coffee

+ GitHub

Your support helps us maintain and improve LUAX! ❤️

✨ Features

  • ⚡ Fast - Built with Lua for speed
  • 📦 Lightweight - Minimal dependencies
  • 🔧 Easy - Simple template system with LAX
  • 📝 Markdown - Write content in Markdown with YAML frontmatter
  • 🏷️ Tags - Automatic tag pages
  • 📄 Pagination - Blog posts pagination
  • 📱 Responsive - Bootstrap 5 ready
  • 🔍 SEO - Open Graph, JSON-LD, sitemap, RSS feed
  • 📂 Assets - Automatic public assets copying

📦 Installation

Prerequisites

  • Donwload Lua (version 5.5 or higher)
  • Python or PHP (for development server)

Clone & Setup

git clone https://github.com/mesinkasir/luax.git
cd luax

File Structure

luax/
├── build.lua          # Build engine
├── start.lua          # Development server
├── lax.lua            # LAX template engine
├── yaml.lua           # YAML parser
├── metadata.yaml      # Site configuration
├── luax.bat           # Windows command line
├── luax.sh            # Linux/Mac command line
├── src/
│   ├── posts/         # Blog posts (.md)
│   └── pages/         # Static pages (.md)
├── templates/
│   ├── layouts/       # Layout templates (.lax)
│   └── partials/      # Partial templates (.lax)
├── public/            # Static assets (css, img, js)
└── dist/              # Generated output

🚀 Usage

Windows

luax build    # Build static site
luax start    # Start development server

Linux / Mac

chmod +x luax.sh
./luax.sh build    # Build static site
./luax.sh start    # Start development server

Development Server

After running luax start, open your browser to:

http://localhost:8080

📝 Content Management

Create a Blog Post

Create a new .md file in src/posts/:

title: My First Post
date: 2024-01-01
tags: lua, tutorial, web
author: LUAX Team
image: /img/cover.webp
excerpt: This is my first blog post
description: Your description here,,,
# My First Post
Content goes here...

Create a Page

Create a new .md file in src/pages/:

title: About Me
description: Learn more about me
image: /img/myimage.png
layout: default
# About Me
Page content goes here...

🎨 Templates

LUAX uses the LAX template engine with .lax files.

LAX = Lua AXcora

Basic Template

@layout(default)
< main >
    < h1 >@title< /h1 >
    < p >@content< /p >
< /main >

Loops and Conditions

@for posts
    < h2>@title< /h2>
    < p>@excerpt< /p>
@end
@if author
    < p>By @author< /p>
@end

Partials

@include(header)
@include(footer)

Layouts

@layout(default)


    @content

Site Configuration

Edit metadata.yaml to configure your site:

title: LUAX SSG
description: Static Site Generator built with Lua
url: http://localhost:8080
image: /img/logo.webp
favicon: /img/favicon.webp
twitter_user: @luaxssg

📦 Building

luax build

The site will be generated in the dist/ folder.

🛠️ Development Server

luax start

The server will start at http://localhost:8080.

Optional: Live Reload

For automatic browser refresh, install one of these:

Browser-Sync:

npm install -g browser-sync
browser-sync start --server dist --port 8080 --files dist/**/*

Python Livereload:

pip install livereload
livereload dist --port 8080

📄 Generated Files

  • dist/ - Static site output
  • sitemap.xml - SEO sitemap
  • feed.xml - RSS feed
  • robots.txt - Robots configuration
  • humans.txt - Humans information
  • tags/ - Automatic tag pages
  • blog/page/ - Paginated blog pages

🚀 Deployment

GitHub Pages

Create .github/workflows/deploy.yml:

name: Deploy to GitHub Pages
on:
  push:
    branches: [ main ]
  workflow_dispatch:
permissions:
  contents: read
  pages: write
  id-token: write
concurrency:
  group: "pages"
  cancel-in-progress: false
jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
    - name: Checkout
      uses: actions/checkout@v4
    - name: Setup Lua
      uses: leafo/gh-actions-lua@v10
      with:
        luaVersion: "5.4"
    - name: Setup LuaRocks
      uses: leafo/gh-actions-luarocks@v4
    - name: Build Site
      run: |
        lua build.lua
    - name: Upload artifact
      uses: actions/upload-pages-artifact@v3
      with:
        path: ./dist
  deploy:
    environment:
      name: github-pages
      url: ${{ steps.deployment.outputs.page_url }}
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    needs: build
    steps:
    - name: Deploy to GitHub Pages
      id: deployment
      uses: actions/deploy-pages@v4

Netlify

Create netlify.toml:

[build]
  command = "lua build.lua"
  publish = "dist"
[build.environment]
  LUA_VERSION = "5.4"

Vercel

Create vercel.json:

{
  "buildCommand": "lua build.lua",
  "outputDirectory": "dist",
  "framework": null
}

Cloudflare Pages

Build command: lua build.lua

Output directory: dist

Manual Deploy

Just upload the dist/ folder to your web server:

# Using rsync
rsync -avz dist/ [email protected]:/var/www/html/
# Using scp
scp -r dist/* [email protected]:/var/www/html/

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

📝 License

MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

Credits

  • Built with Lua
  • Template engine: LAX
  • Bootstrap for styling

Support & Donation

If you find LUAX helpful, consider supporting us:

+ PayPal

+ Buy Me a Coffee

+ GitHub

Your support helps us maintain and improve LUAX! ❤️

🚀 Built with ❤️ using LUAX