lazysite

Markdown-driven pages for any CGI-capable web server. No build step, no database, no CMS. Drop a .md file in your docroot and it is served as a fully rendered HTML page. The first request generates the HTML and caches it; every subsequent request is a plain static file.

Features

Content - Markdown pages with YAML front matter - Template Toolkit variables in pages and layouts - Fenced divs, oEmbed, content includes - Remote pages (.url files that fetch Markdown from a URL) - Page scan for blog/news index pages - Registry files: sitemap.xml, llms.txt, RSS, Atom - TTL-based cache and API/raw output modes

Layouts and themes - Template Toolkit layout templates (layout.tt) - Themes nest under lazysite/layouts/LAYOUT/themes/THEME/ - Design tokens auto-emit as CSS custom properties (theme.config) - Built-in fallback so sites work with zero configuration

Manager - Browser-based admin at /manager - Config, Files, Nav, Plugins, Themes, Users, and Cache pages - Admin bar on site pages for manager users

Authentication - Built-in cookie auth (lazysite-auth.pl) with users and groups - Drop-in replacement by any proxy that sets X-Remote-* headers - Per-page auth: and auth_groups: front matter

Forms - Inline :::form blocks with field validation - Named dispatch handlers (SMTP, file storage, webhooks) - Honeypot, HMAC timestamp token, and rate limiting built in

Payment - x402 payment flow support via payment: front matter

Plugins - Auto-discovery of CGI scripts and tools via --describe JSON - Enable, disable, and configure from the manager

Operations - Structured logging (text or JSON, env or config) - Link audit (orphaned pages, broken internal links) - Static site generation for GitHub Pages, Netlify, etc.

Quick start

git clone https://github.com/OpenDigitalCC/lazysite.git
cd lazysite
perl tools/lazysite-server.pl

Open http://localhost:8080/ to browse the starter site.

Installation

sudo bash install.sh --docroot /path/to/public_html \
                     --cgibin /path/to/cgi-bin \
                     --domain example.com

The installer is upgrade-aware: re-run against the same --docroot to apply a new release. Seed files you've edited are preserved; backups accumulate at {docroot}/lazysite/backups/. Use --dry-run to preview an upgrade, --restore to roll back.

HestiaCP users: see installers/hestia/. Docker: see installers/docker/.

Full installation details in starter/docs/install.md.

Documentation

Browse locally via the dev server, or read the Markdown directly:

starter/docs/install.md - installation
starter/docs/authoring.md - writing content
starter/docs/configuration.md - lazysite.conf, nav, plugins
starter/docs/layouts.md - layouts and themes
starter/docs/manager.md - the manager UI
starter/docs/auth.md - authentication
starter/docs/forms.md - contact forms
starter/docs/payment.md - x402 payment
starter/docs/development.md - dev server, rsync, troubleshooting
starter/docs/reference.md - keys, variables, file locations

AI-assistant briefings:

starter/docs/ai-briefing-authoring.md
starter/docs/ai-briefing-layouts.md
starter/docs/ai-briefing-configuration.md
starter/docs/ai-briefing-development.md

Layouts and themes

Ready-to-use layouts and themes live in the companion repo lazysite-layouts. Install a theme zip via the manager Themes page, which unpacks it under lazysite/layouts/LAYOUT/themes/THEME/. Layouts are installed manually or via the "Install from Releases" browser.

Requirements

Perl 5.10 or later
Apache or nginx with CGI support
Template Toolkit (libtemplate-perl on Debian)
Optional: IO::Socket::SSL for HTTPS SMTP delivery

Licence

MIT. See LICENSE.