Arc - A Simple, Fast, Static Site Generator in Java

Arc is a lightweight static site generator written in Java that converts Markdown files to HTML. It's designed to be simple, fast, and easy to use for generating static websites from Markdown content.

To read about building Arc, go here.

Warning: this was built in about 5 hours with an AI buddy because I wanted to rebuild my personal site and learn Cursor.

Features

• Converts Markdown files to HTML using CommonMark
• Supports YAML frontmatter for metadata
• Simple template system
• Variables: {{ variable }}
• Loops: {for post in posts}...{% endfor %}
• Conditionals: {% if variable %}...{% endif %}
• Includes: {% include "header.html" %}
• RSS feed generation with configurable site metadata
• Has a built-in hot reload mode for development
• Uses jpackage to build a native executable

Requirements

• Java 24 or later
• Faith

Building the Project

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/yourusername/arc.git
   cd arc

2. Build the project with Maven:

   mvn clean package

This will also run jpackage to create a local app (currently supported platform: macos arm64)

3. create an executable script in your path somewhere and point it to the arc file like so:

#!/bin/bash
/path-to-this-project/target/jpackage/arc.app/Contents/MacOS/arc

4. Copy all the contents from /src/main/resources/examples/arc-site to a separate folder

5. Run arc --watch in that folder which runs in hot-reload mode.

6. cd to /site directory and type jwebserver

7. Open http://localhost:8000 in your browser.

Directory Structure

Arc expects the following directory structure:

project/
├── app/
│   ├── posts/         # Blog posts in Markdown
│   ├── pages/         # Static pages in Markdown
│   ├── templates/     # HTML templates
│   ├── assets/        # Static assets (CSS, JS, images)
│   └── site.config    # Site configuration (optional)
└── site/              # Generated site (created by Arc)

Site Configuration

Arc supports an optional app/site.config file for global site settings:

---
title: My Arc Site
description: A beautiful website built with Arc
url: https://example.com
author: Your Name
language: en-us
rss_max_items: 10
---

These settings are used for RSS feed generation and are available as template variables.

Template System

Arc uses a simple template system with the following features:

• {{ variable }} for variable substitution
• {% if condition %}...{% endif %} for conditionals
• {% for item in collection %}...{% endfor %} for loops
• {% include "file.html" %} for including partials

Example Frontmatter

---
title: My Awesome Post
date: 2025-05-26
template: post.html
description: A brief description of the post
---

# My Awesome Post

This is the content of my post...