Front matter

Front matter is the lines at the top of a page that Statac and your templates read. In content/post-1.md:

---
title: Post 1
date: 2026-10-04
tags: [Rust, Go]
layout: post
---
The writing starts here.

It is YAML, between two --- lines. Each line is a field, a name and a value, which a template shows as page. and the name: {{ page.title }}.

Fields Statac reads

Statac reads the fields in these tables. Any other name is a field of your own.

About the page

Where it is published

Tags, series and neighbours

On a page that speaks for a list

A folder’s index.md speaks for the folder’s list, and any page can choose a list of its own: a page that speaks for a list.

A posts: line, or each: site.posts, keeps some posts with the filters tagged, in and where:

posts: site.posts | in("blog") | tagged("Rust")

Feeds, sharing and webmentions

Write a date

A date is written year first, and one with no offset is read on the site’s timezone. A file named 2026-10-04-post-1.md takes its date from its name. Dates and languages has how dates look on the page.

Let Statac write the date

In content/post-1.md:

---
title: Post 1
date: =today
---

A stamp stands for a date until Statac writes the date over it. statac serve does so as it starts and each time you save, and statac stamp does every stamp in the site at once.

A post stamped with a day to come waits for it.

• A stamp is the whole of a value, in any field of front matter: one of Statac’s, one of yours, one nested beneath another, or an item of a list.
• Anywhere else it is text: in the writing, in statac.yaml, in a data file or in a template. So is a value that only begins with =, such as =IF(A1).

Stamp before a build

statac build and statac check never write a date, and stop at a stamp. Before them, run:

statac stamp

Stamped `content/post-1.md`: `date` is `2026-10-06`.

It writes the date over every stamp in the site and says each one. Besides the feed ids a site with write_feed_ids: true asks for, it changes nothing else in a file.

Name the site’s folder after the command, or with --site=<folder>, as for statac build. --today=<date> gives the day to count from, and =now is then that day’s midnight.

Hand fields down to many pages

A line starting pages. hands a field down to many pages at once. In statac.yaml, it reaches every page:

pages.layout: post

In a folder’s index.md, it reaches every page inside that folder and the folders within it:

---
title: Posts
pages.layout: post
pages.summary: One of the posts.
---

A page’s own line comes first, then the nearest folder’s, and so on out to statac.yaml. A folder’s index.md is handed the lines of the folders above it, never its own. From statac.yaml, a line also reaches the home page and the pages Statac makes for tags and series.

Write each line flat, as pages.layout: post, and in statac.yaml where it is for every page. A page with each: hands its pages. lines to the pages it makes.

Add fields of your own

In content/post-1.md:

---
title: Post 1
book:
  author: Author 1
  isbn: 0-000-00000-0
---

A template shows the author as {{ page.book.author }}. A field can hold text, a number, a list, or fields nested beneath it, as book: does. Nest a field the same way on every page.

Some names are Statac’s on every page, such as slug, url, content, source and language: written on a page, the line is set aside.

Declare your fields

In statac.yaml:

fields.isbn: text
fields.rating: number
fields.read: when

Statac then checks the field on every page that writes it.

required before the kind says every page must have the field. For the pages of one type only, write the declaration under types.:

types.book.isbn: required text

A field nested beneath another is declared by its whole name, on one line, with a dot between each part:

fields.book.author: text
fields.book.published: date
types.review.book.rating: required number

A field that names a record or a page

fields.author: one of data.people
fields.review_of: one of folder.books

A template is handed the name as written.

• A table is named as each: names it.
• A folder inside another is named by its path, folder.books/shelf-1. Its names are the pages in it and in the folders inside it, but no folder’s own index.md.
• A page’s name is the one in its address, whatever its permalink:, without the date it opens with or its number in a numbered folder: 03-day-one.md is day-one.
• Drafts and posts waiting for their day are names too. On a site in several languages, a page at that path in any language is a name.

Dates in your fields

A template shows a date or when field as the site writes its dates, and can ask one for its parts:

Each part but weekday is a number. Guard a part a field may not have: {% if page.read.month is defined %}.

Sorted, when fields go in the order of the calendar, among themselves and among whole dates: 2025, 2025-10, 2025-10-04, 2026.

When does a value need quotes?

Statac takes a bare value as typed where YAML’s reading keeps every character, so title: 1984 is the text 1984.

A field of yours that isn’t declared as text is read as YAML reads it, so version: 3.10 there is the number 3.1. Quotes make a value text.

A text in quotes that runs onto more lines needs each later line indented at least two spaces deeper than the line it opens on.

Where next?

• Lists, tags and series: lists of your own, their order, and pages of a list
• Addresses: permalink patterns, old addresses and sending readers on
• Templates: which template builds a page, and what it can show
• Dates and languages: how dates look, time zones and translations