Getting Started

Install Civet, build a site, and publish it in under five minutes.

Prerequisites

Civet ships as a single static binary, so there's no runtime to install. You'll only need it on your machine to build; the output is plain HTML that runs anywhere.

  • macOS, Linux, or WSL2 (Windows builds are available too)
  • ~14 MB of disk space for the binary
  • A text editor you like

1. Install Civet

The fastest way is the install script, which downloads the right binary for your platform:

$ curl -sSf https://civet.skin/install.sh | sh

Prefer a package manager? Civet is also on Homebrew, Scoop, and AUR:

$ brew install civet $ scoop install civet $ yay -S civet-bin

Verify the install:

$ civet version civet v1.4.0 (go1.23.2 linux/amd64)

2. Create a site

Scaffold a new project. This generates a working site with a sample post and the default theme:

$ civet new my-site $ cd my-site

Your project now looks like this:

my-site/ ├── content/ # your Markdown lives here │ └── posts/ │ └── welcome.md ├── static/ # images, css, favicon ├── templates/ # Go templates ├── civet.toml # site config └── themes/

3. Start the dev server

Run the local server with live reload:

$ civet serve ▶ listening on http://localhost:1414 ▶ watching content/ for changes ▶ ready in 38 ms

Open http://localhost:1414 in your browser. Edit content/posts/welcome.md, save, and the page refreshes instantly.

4. Write content

Create a new post with front matter and Markdown body:

--- title: "My second post" date: 2026-07-08 draft: false tags: [notes, web] --- # Hello again This renders as **HTML**. Civet handles syntax highlighting, tables, and footnotes.

5. Build & deploy

Generate the static site into public/:

$ civet build ▶ rendered 42 pages in 61 ms ▶ output: public/

Deploy public/ anywhere static files are served — drag it into Netlify, push to Cloudflare Pages, or rsync it to your own box:

$ rsync -avz public/ user@server:/var/www/mysite/

Next steps

Edit this page on GitHub · Last updated July 8, 2026