Arriving from another tool

statac import reads a site that Jekyll, Hugo, Zola or Eleventy made and writes a new Statac site beside it, leaving the old one as it was.

What comes across, and what doesn’t

It brings across:

• the writing and its front matter, the old tool’s field names put into Statac’s words
• dates, from the front matter or from a file’s name
• common template tags, as snippet calls
• pictures, other files and data files
• the settings Statac has an equal for
• each old address it can, kept or redirected

It leaves behind:

• layouts, includes, stylesheets and the theme
• plugins: Statac does their work itself only for feeds, sitemaps, old addresses and later pages
• running template tags: Statac runs none in the writing

The new site has the starter’s templates, snippets and stylesheet, with the old site’s pages in place of a new site’s samples.

The later pages of a Jekyll site’s home page, such as /page2/, become redirects to the posts’ own pages. Nothing answers the later pages of a Hugo, Zola or Eleventy site’s home page.

The old site is only read, and nothing is fetched.

Import a site

statac import old

Imported the Jekyll site `old` into `old-statac`. This is a best effort: read `old-statac/IMPORT.md` before you publish.

Converted: 95 posts, 5 drafts, 4 pages, 120 other files.
Addresses: 104 kept, 2 that nothing answers now.
Left for you: 14 things of 5 kinds.

Next: `cd old-statac`, then `statac check`.

The new site goes beside the old one, its name ending -statac. To put it elsewhere, name the folder, as statac import old new-site: it must be empty or not there yet, and neither folder inside the other. If anything stops the import part way, the new folder is left as it was found.

Statac knows the tool by its settings file. Where it can’t tell, say which:

statac import old --from=jekyll

--today=2026-10-04 is the day the import checks the new site on.

Where the old site’s settings give no web address, Statac asks for it before it writes anything:

What is the site's address?
  The old site's settings don't say.
  Enter for none yet.
  > 

The answer is written as the new site’s url. Enter leaves url out, for you to add later. Where the old settings give only a path, Eleventy’s pathPrefix or Jekyll’s baseurl, the path is added to the answer: https://example.org gives url: https://example.org/blog.

Run with no terminal, the import takes the first line on standard input as the answer.

What happens to old addresses?

Statac keeps or redirects each old address it can, and the report lists every one it can’t. Where most pages beneath a folder moved the same way, a pattern in the folder’s own page keeps them, as for Jekyll’s posts:

---
title: Posts
pages.layout: post
pages.permalink: /{year}/{month}/{day}/{slug}.html
---

Where the old site’s built output is beside it, Statac checks its pages too, and lists each one nothing answers now.

Front matter

Each tool’s fields become Statac’s where they mean the same: each tool’s page has the table.

Dates

Each date is written year first, keeping what the old date held and no more: seconds and an offset only where it had them. Jekyll’s dates have a rule of their own.

Categories and other lists

tags: [rust]
categories: [linux, Home Lab]

becomes

tags:
  - rust
  - category_linux
  - category_Home Lab

Each category becomes a tag, category_ and its name as spelt, after the page’s own tags. Other lists the settings declare, such as authors, give tags the same way. A page in more than one series keeps the first, and each other becomes a tag, series_ and its name.

Where the old site published a page for each category, a small page at the top of content/ sends its readers on to the tag’s page:

---
permalink: /categories/linux/
redirect_to: /tags/category-linux/
---

Template tags in the writing

{{< note kind="tip" >}}
The writing.
{{< /note >}}

becomes

@old_note(kind='tip')
The writing.
@end

Each template tag with an equal is converted, as each tool’s page lists. Any other is left as written, and listed at its line.

A helper giving an address inside the site, such as Jekyll’s relative_url, becomes the address from the top of the domain with the site’s path in front: /blog/photo-1.jpg on a site under /blog.

An include, or a template tag of the site’s own, becomes a snippet call. A name one of the starter’s snippets has already, such as note, gets old_ before it. The snippet written for it, here snippets/old_note.html, shows only a comment saying it wasn’t converted: write it as Snippets describes, or take its calls out.

Other changes to the writing

Pictures and files

Most files the old site published as they are go into static/ at the same path, so their addresses stay.

Symbolic links and other folders

Statac reads nothing outside the old site’s folder. A symbolic link is followed only where it leads to something inside the same old site that the site published. The report lists each one it didn’t follow, with why.

Read the report

IMPORT.md, at the top of the new site, says what came across, the settings written and how each address was kept, then each kind of thing left for you, with what to do and every place. Statac never reads it, so delete it once nothing in it is left to do.

Statac checks the new site as statac check does, and lists each error in the report. The command then says:

The new site doesn't build yet: 2 errors, listed in `old-statac/IMPORT.md`.

After the import

1. Work through IMPORT.md, a kind at a time.
2. In the new site, run statac check until it shows no errors.
3. Choose how the site looks: it has the starter’s templates, yours to change or replace, with statac serve showing each save.

Where next?

• Templates: give the new site the look you want
• The starter: what each of the starter’s files is, and the words its pages show
• Addresses: permalink patterns and redirects
• Snippets: write the snippets the import left for you