Writer Quickstart

Create your first site and start writing content

2 min read 365 words

Get from zero to published content in 5 minutes. This guide is for content creators who want to focus on writing.

Prerequisites

Before You Start

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Create Your Site

Use the interactive wizard:

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bengal new site myblog
cd myblog

Choose a preset that matches your goal (Blog, Documentation, Portfolio, etc.).

Start the Dev Server

bengal serve

Open http://localhost:5173/ in your browser. The dev server automatically rebuilds when you save changes (hot reload).

Create Your First Post

bengal new page my-first-post --section blog

Editcontent/blog/my-first-post.md:

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---
title: My First Post
date: 2025-01-15
tags: [welcome, tutorial]
description: Getting started with Bengal
draft: false
---

# My First Post

Welcome to my new blog! This is my first post using Bengal.

## Why I Chose Bengal

- Fast builds with parallel processing
- Simple Markdown-based workflow
- Customizable themes and templates

Stay tuned for more!

Save the file. Your new post appears automatically!

Customize Your Site

Editconfig/_default/site.yaml:

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site:
  title: "My Awesome Blog"
  description: "Thoughts on code, design, and life"
  baseurl: "https://myblog.com"
  language: "en"

Build for Production

bengal build

Your complete site is inpublic/, ready to deploy!

Deploy

Deploy thepublic/directory to any static hosting:

  • Netlify: Build command:bengal build, Publish:public
  • GitHub Pages: Use the workflow in Automate with GitHub Actions
  • Vercel: Build command:bengal build, Output:public

Frontmatter Reference

Common frontmatter fields:

Field Description
title Page title (required)
date Publication date
tags Tags for taxonomy (e.g.,[python, web])
weight Sort order (lower = first)
draft trueto hide from builds
description SEO description

Next Steps

Happy writing! 🎉