Lists, tags and series

A list gathers posts for a page to show: Statac keeps one for the site, each folder, each tag and each series, and a page can make its own.

What is a list?

A post is a page with a date, in its front matter or at the start of its file’s name. A page with no date, such as an about page, is in no list of posts.

On a site in several languages, each language keeps its own: lists in each language.

The page at a list’s address

The page at a list’s address speaks for it: a folder’s index.md, or content/tags/rust.md at /tags/rust/. Its writing introduces the list, and its front matter carries the list’s settings:

Where no page of yours stands there, Statac makes one, with no writing and no title: headline(page) calls it by the list’s name.

With no layout of its own, the page is built with templates/folder.html, or templates/home.html for the home page. A layout handed down doesn’t reach it.

A folder’s list

In content/posts/index.md:

---
title: Posts
order: oldest first
---
The posts, oldest first.

content/posts/ lists every post beneath it, and content/posts/2026/ that year’s.

A folder at the top of content/ with no index.md gets a page from Statac. A folder inside another has a page only by its own index.md.

A folder holding an index.md and nothing else is one page, not a list.

Tags

In a post’s front matter:

tags: [Rust, Go]

Statac never changes the capitals of a tag.

To introduce a tag, write a page at its address, such as content/tags/rust.md. A template names a tag’s page by its list:

<title>{{ headline(page) }}</title>
<h1>Posts tagged {{ page.list.name }}</h1>

In statac.yaml, for the pages Statac makes for tags and series:

tags.slugs:
  C++: cpp

Series

In a post’s front matter:

series: Series 1

A post is in one series at most, and walks it.

Order

On a list’s page:

order: oldest first

Posts of the same day with no time come A to Z by file name. Give one a time to choose its place: date: 2026-10-05 08:00.

pages.order: oldest first in statac.yaml turns every list. In a folder’s index.md, it turns the lists inside the folder, not the folder’s own.

Numbered folders

Where every page in a folder opens its name with a number and a hyphen, its list holds every page, dated or not, in the order of the numbers. The numbers are left out of the addresses.

Where the numbers are part of the names, in the folder’s index.md:

numbered: false

To order a folder by hand, list its pages in its index.md by the names in their addresses:

order: [day-one, day-two, day-three]

Pages the list leaves out follow in their usual order.

Pages of a list

A list’s page shows ten posts. Any more go on later pages beneath it: /blog/page/2/ has the next ten, built with the same template.

In statac.yaml:

later_pages: "{list}{n}/"

This puts page 2 of /blog/ at /blog/2/. The pattern opens with {list}, holds {n} once and ends with /.

A later page carries the list’s title, summary, fields and layout, and none of its writing. A page that isn’t HTML, such as a feed, shows every post on one page.

On a list’s pages, page.previous and page.next walk those pages.

Previous and next

{% if page.next %}<a href="{{ page.next.url }}">{{ page.next.title }}</a>{% endif %}

page.previous and page.next are the pages either side of this one, in the order a reader meets them: in a list running newest first, page.next is the older post. A post at either end has no previous, or no next, so ask first.

A post walks:

• its series, where it is in one;
• otherwise, the folder holding it at the top of content/: a post in content/posts/2024/ walks all of content/posts/;
• or, for a post directly in content/, every post on the site.

neighbours: chooses another:

pages.neighbours: in a folder’s index.md hands it to every page inside.

Related posts

{% for post in related(page) %}
<a href="{{ post.url }}">{{ headline(post) }}</a>
{% endfor %}

related(page) gives the posts sharing a tag with the page, those sharing the most first.

Lists made with posts: and each:

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

posts: gives a page a list of its own: every post, narrowed by these filters.

The same filters work on any list of pages in a template, and newest_first puts one in date order.

A page for each post

In content/print.md:

---
title: Printable posts
each: site.posts | tagged("Rust")
permalink: /print/{slug}/
layout: print
index_page: false
---

each: makes a page for each post it chooses: here /print/post-1/, built with templates/print.html.

The template sees the post as page.post: page.post.title, page.post.date, page.post.url. The page made is not the post: page.title and page.url are its own, it has no date and no other list holds it. page.list.pages on the page with each: holds the pages it made.

each: also makes a page for each item of a data file: pages made from data.

Drafts and posts waiting for their day

---
title: Post 1
draft: true
---

A page with draft: true is a draft. A post dated after today, on the site’s own clock, is waiting for its day.

statac serve

Showing 1 draft and 1 post waiting for its day, which `statac build` leaves out.

statac serve shows both and marks each one. To see exactly what a build would publish:

statac serve --no-drafts

statac build leaves both out: neither is published, listed or in a feed. A waiting post is published by the first build on or after its day.

To build them as if published:

statac build --drafts

--today=2026-10-05 builds the site as it will be on that day. Serving and building have the rest.

Pages without titles

For short notes with no title, in the folder’s index.md, here content/notes/index.md:

---
pages.untitled: true
---

Every page in the folder is handed it; in statac.yaml, every page of the site. headline(page) then calls each one by its date:

One page says the same for itself with untitled: true, or untitled: false in such a folder.

Lists in templates

{% if page.list.word == "tag" %}
<h1>Posts tagged {{ page.list.name }}</h1>
{% else %}
<h1>{{ page.list.title }}</h1>
{% endif %}
{% for post in page.posts %}
<p><a href="{{ post.url }}">{{ headline(post) }}</a></p>
{% endfor %}
{% if page.list.pager | length > 1 %}
<p>Page {{ page.number }} of {{ page.list.pager | length }}</p>
{% endif %}

Every list answers the same names:

The site’s lists, and the page’s:

On a site in several languages, see each language in templates.

A new site’s own snippets for lists are in the home page and the lists.

Where next?

• Front matter: handing a line down to every page in a folder
• Feeds, sitemaps and other files: which lists have a feed, and where it goes
• Templates: what a template sees, and its filters and functions
• Addresses: permalink patterns, and numbers and dates in file names