What is sta6?

sta6: sta(six), static.

As simple as it gets, sta6 is a tiny static site generator (bundler) that turns pages/*.lisp into build/*.html, with support for dynamic routes [1].

sta6, and many other SSGs are intended for content-driven sites (e.g., blogs, docs, wiki).

Rather than providing built-in Markdown support, sta6 lets you integrate any Markdown parser amongst the library of Common Lisp [2].

Using an SSG does not mean your site can't be interactive. You can use JavaScript/TypeScript to bring a simple interactivity to your site [3]. For example, this docs uses @hotwired/turbo for an SPA-like routing. Although, that's an additional ~90kB to pay.

If your site requires richer client-side interactions (i.e., DOM manipulation), then consider adding an external library:

But that's beside the point.

You can create layouts, and components (example: sta6/docs). Basically, sta6 tries to do what Next.js is capable of.

Example

An index page (i.e., src/pages/page.lisp) should look like:

(defpackage #:pages/page
  (:use #:cl)
  (:export #:render))

(defun pages/page:render ()
  (sta6:html5
    (:p "hello, from sta6!")))

This will render into build/index.html, see quickstart for a more complete example.

Why bother using sta6?

  1. You do not need (to learn) an external templating language (e.g., Nunjucks, Handlebars, EJS).
  2. sta6 isn't fancy. It's tiny, minimal, barebone.
  3. Lisp is beautiful, and sta6 is your excuse to try it.

Note that sta6 is still in it's early development (BETA). Some quality-of-life features are still absent [4].