Render Engine CLI

Render Engine comes with a CLI that can be used to create, build, and serve your site.

creating your app with render-engine init

The init command is a hook to call cookiecutter.

This allows you to quickly create or augment your render-engine site using a pre-existing cookiecutter template.

The default is the cookiecutter-render-engine-site.

Create a new site configuration. You can provide extra_context to the cookiecutter template.

Also any argument that cookiecutter accepts can be passed to this command.

The template can be a local path or a git repository.

collection-path (Path: default="pages")

The path to the folder that will contain your collections. This is where you will put your data files to be processed.

force (bool: default=False as no-force)

Overwrite existing files and folders. If no-force, an error will be raised if ANY of the files already exist.

output-path (Path: default="output")

The path to the output directory. This is where your rendered site will be served.

project-path-name (Path: default="app.py")

The name of the python file that will contain the Render Engine setup. This is where you will define your site, pages and collections.

project-folder (Path: default=".")

The name of the folder that will contain your project. This is where your project-path-name, output-path, templates-path, and collection-path will be created.

site-description (str|None: default=None)

A short description of your site. This will be passed into the Site object and available in site_vars.

skip-collection (bool: default=False as no-skip-collection)

If True, a collection-path folder will not be created.

skip-static - (bool: default: False as no-skip-static)

If True, will not create the static folder. This is where you will put your static files (images, css, js, etc).

templates-path (Path: default="templates")

The path to the folder that will contain your templates. This is where you will put your Jinja2 templates.

Building your site with render-engine build

CLI for creating a new site

Parameters:

Name	Type	Description	Default
module_site	Annotated[str, Argument(callback=split_module_site, help='module:site for Build the site prior to serving')]	Python module and initialize Site class	required

build requires a module_site parameter in the format of module:site. module is the name of the python file that contains the site variable you've initialized. If the site site variable is in the app.py file, then the module_site parameter would be app:site.

Serving your site (locally) with render-engine serve

The serve command creates a simple webserver that you can use to view your files.

serve requires a module_site argument in the format of module:site. module is the name of the python file that contains the site variable you've initialized. If the site site variable is in the app.py file, then the module_site parameter would be app:site.

You can also use the --reload flag to have the site rebuild when changes are made.

Create an HTTP server to serve the site at localhost.

Warning

This is only for development purposes and should not be used in production.

Name	Type	Description	Default
module_site	Annotated[str, Argument(callback=split_module_site, help='module:site for Build the site prior to serving')]	Python module and initialize Site class	required
reload	Annotated[bool, Option(--reload, -r, help='Reload the server when files change')]	Use to reload server on file change	None
build		flag to build the site prior to serving the app	required
directory	Annotated[str, Option(--directory, -d, help='Directory to serve', show_default=False)]	Directory to serve. If module_siteis provided, this will be the output_pathof the site.	None
port	Annotated[int, Option(--port, -p, help='Port to serve on', show_default=False)]	Port to serve on	8000

Note

--reload triggers a rebuild after re-importing the site object. Certain changes will not be picked up in the rebuild and reload.