Leaf started as a small experiment: can we build a useful static site generator in Donna without turning it into a cathedral?
The answer is yes. A very leafy yes.
What's in 0.1.0
Leaf now has the pieces a real site needs:
- Markdown content
- TOML front matter
- Mustache layouts
- themes
- assets and static files
- posts, docs, books, and normal pages
- sitemap and RSS output
- draft filtering
- configurable pagination
serve --watchfor local work
That is enough to build a blog, documentation site, package page, or a small product site without dragging in a runtime.
The shape of the tool
Leaf is intentionally plain.
leaf init website
cd website
leaf serve --watch
Write Markdown. Edit templates. Refresh the browser. Build the final site.
leaf build
The goal is not to impress you with configuration. The goal is to stay out of your way after the first five minutes.
Why Mustache?
Mustache keeps templates logic-light. That matters because themes should be portable and readable.
If the template starts becoming a second application, something has gone sideways. Leaf would prefer to notice that early, fix the data, and move on with a little dignity.
What comes next
The next steps are better docs, stronger theme examples, and more polish around generated pages.
Leaf is still young, but it already has a clear job. Small static sites. Clean docs. Nice local workflow. Native binary. No nonsense.