Scaffold Your First Site

Bengal provides built-in templates to quickly create sites with common information architectures. This tutorial covers three ways to scaffold a site.

Quick Start: Template-Based Creation

The fastest way to start is with a template:

# Create a documentation site
bengal new site my-docs --template docs

# Navigate and preview
cd my-docs
bengal serve

Open http://localhost:5173to see your scaffolded site.

Available Templates

What Gets Created

When you runbengal new site my-docs --template docs, Bengal creates:

my-docs/
├── config/
│   ├── _default/
│   │   ├── site.yaml        # Site identity (title, author, baseurl)
│   │   ├── content.yaml     # Content processing settings
│   │   ├── build.yaml       # Build configuration
│   │   ├── features.yaml    # Feature toggles
│   │   ├── theme.yaml       # Theme configuration
│   │   └── params.yaml      # Custom variables
│   └── environments/
│       ├── local.yaml       # Development overrides
│       └── production.yaml  # Production settings
├── content/
│   ├── index.md             # Home page
│   ├── getting-started/     # Onboarding section
│   │   ├── _index.md
│   │   ├── installation.md
│   │   └── quickstart.md
│   ├── guides/              # How-to guides
│   │   └── _index.md
│   └── api/                 # API reference
│       └── _index.md
└── .gitignore

Method 1: Interactive Wizard

For a guided experience, run without arguments:

bengal new site

The wizard prompts for:

1. Site name (creates directory)
2. Base URL (for production deployment)
3. Template (select from list)

Method 2: Direct Template Selection

Skip prompts with explicit options:

# Blog with custom name
bengal new site my-blog --template blog

# Portfolio at specific URL
bengal new site portfolio --template portfolio

Method 3: Add Sections to an Existing Site

Bengal has no command for retrofitting sections into an existing site — content lives in plain files, so you add a section by creating its directory and an_index.md:

# Add a docs section
mkdir -p content/docs
$EDITOR content/docs/_index.md

# Add a tutorials section
mkdir -p content/tutorials
$EDITOR content/tutorials/_index.md

Bengal infers a section's content type from its directory name:

You can override the inferred type by settingtype: (or a cascade.type:) in the section's_index.mdfrontmatter.

Customizing After Scaffolding

Preview and Build

# Live preview with hot reload
bengal serve

# Production build
bengal build

# Build with specific environment
bengal build --environment production

Skeleton Manifests

Bengal's site templates are powered by skeleton manifests —skeleton.yamlfiles that define a complete site structure (frontmatter, cascades, and content stubs). They are not a separate CLI step: when you drop askeleton.yamlinto a template directory, Bengal materializes it automatically duringbengal new site.

# Scaffold a site from a template backed by a skeleton manifest
bengal new site api-docs --template api-docs

See Create Custom Skeletons for the full guide on writing skeleton YAML files.

Next Steps

• Configuration Reference - Detailed config options
• Content Organization - Structuring your content
• Theming Guide - Customize appearance

Troubleshooting

# Remove existing directory
rm -rf my-docs

# Or use a different name
bengal new site my-docs-v2 --template docs

rm -rf content/blog
mkdir -p content/blog
$EDITOR content/blog/_index.md

bengal build