# Rendering Pipeline

URL: /bengal/docs/reference/architecture/rendering/
Section: rendering
Description: How Bengal transforms Markdown to HTML

---

> For a complete page index, fetch /bengal/llms.txt.

How Bengal transforms source content into final output.

Stage
What it does
Key modules

Discovery
Find`.md`files, parse frontmatter
`bengal/content/discovery/`

Rendering
Template selection, Markdown → HTML
`bengal/rendering/`, `bengal/parsing/`

Post-Process
Sitemap, RSS, redirects, social cards
`bengal/postprocess/`

Health
Link validation, content checks
`bengal/health/`

## Template Resolution

- Check for explicit`template`in frontmatter

- Match by content`type` (page → `page.html`, section → `list.html`)

- Fall back to`single.html`

Note

The rendering pipeline is lazy — templates are compiled on first use and cached.

## In This Section

Asset Pipeline (/bengal/docs/reference/architecture/rendering/assets-pipeline/)

How Bengal processes static assets

Content Processing API (/bengal/docs/reference/architecture/rendering/content-processing-api/)

What Bengal computes vs what themes display - the content processing contract

Discovery System (/bengal/docs/reference/architecture/rendering/discovery/)

How Bengal finds and catalogs content, sections, and assets

Post-Processing (/bengal/docs/reference/architecture/rendering/postprocess/)

Site-wide operations after rendering - sitemap, RSS, and link validation

Rendering Pipeline (/bengal/docs/reference/architecture/rendering/rendering/)

How Bengal transforms Markdown to HTML