Quick Start

Skier is a static site generator you drive from a plain list of tasks. You describe your build as a pipeline — clean the output, render pages, copy assets — and the skier CLI runs it top to bottom. There is no scaffold step and no hidden config: a project is one skier.tasks.mjs file plus your source.

This guide takes you from an empty folder to a live site in under ten minutes. Every command is copy-paste-ready; do them in order.

Prerequisites

Skier needs Node.js ≥ 22.17 (this repo pins 22.17.1 in .nvmrc) and npm. Check with node --version before you start. The deploy step at the end also uses a free Firebase project — you can stop after the preview step if you only want a local build.

At a glance, the whole path:

Step	What you do	Time
1	Create a project and install Skier	~2 min
2	Write your first page	~1 min
3	Define the pipeline	~1 min
4	Build	~30 sec
5	Preview locally	~30 sec
6	Deploy to Firebase Hosting	~4 min

1. Create a project (~2 min)

Make a folder, initialise a package, and add Skier as a dev dependency. The two src/ directories are where your pages and shared partials will live:

mkdir my-site && cd my-site
npm init -y
npm install --save-dev skier
mkdir -p src/pages src/partials

That leaves you with the smallest layout that builds:

my-site/
├── src/
│   ├── pages/          # your pages (Handlebars-enabled HTML)
│   └── partials/       # shared template partials (may be empty)
├── skier.tasks.mjs     # your build pipeline (created in step 3)
└── package.json

Note

Skier imposes no fixed layout — tasks point at whatever directories you name. But generatePagesTask reads its partialsDir, so that folder must exist even when you have no partials yet. mkdir -p src/partials is enough.

2. Write your first page (~1 min)

Create src/pages/index.html. Pages are ordinary HTML with Handlebars available, so {{variables}} and partials work — but plain HTML is a valid page too:

<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
  <head>
    <meta charset="utf-8" />
    <title>Hello, Skier</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <h1>Hello, Skier 👋</h1>
  </body>
</html>

3. Define the pipeline (~1 min)

Your build lives in skier.tasks.mjs. It must export a tasks array — a named export called tasks is exactly what the CLI loads:

import { prepareOutputTask, generatePagesTask } from 'skier';

export const tasks = [
  prepareOutputTask({ outDir: 'public' }),
  generatePagesTask({
    pagesDir: 'src/pages',
    partialsDir: 'src/partials',
    outDir: 'public',
  }),
];

Tasks run in array order — ordering is your build's control flow:

prepareOutputTask cleans and recreates public/ so each build starts from a blank slate.
generatePagesTask compiles every .html file in pagesDir through Handlebars (registering any partials from partialsDir) and writes the result to outDir.

Tip

Skier auto-detects the config file, trying skier.tasks.js, then .mjs, .cjs, and .ts in that order. This guide uses .mjs because it works regardless of your package's type field.

4. Build (~30 sec)

Run the CLI:

npx skier

You'll see each task start and finish, and your site lands in public/:

ℹ️ [skier/runner] Started
ℹ️ [skier/prepare-output] Started task
ℹ️ [skier/prepare-output] Finished task
ℹ️ [skier/generate-pages] Started task
ℹ️ [skier/generate-pages] Finished task
ℹ️ [skier/runner] Completed

Prefer a script? Add one to package.json and use npm run build instead — it's the same command:

{
  "scripts": {
    "build": "skier"
  }
}

Tip

If a build does something unexpected, re-run with npx skier --debug for per-task logging (paths written, partials registered, …). You can also narrow a run with --only <names> or --skip <names> (comma-separated task names, e.g. --only generate-pages). Task names come from the built-ins — the pipeline above exposes prepare-output and generate-pages.

5. Preview locally (~30 sec)

Skier writes plain static files, so any static server works. The quickest:

npx serve public

Open the printed URL and you'll see your page. Re-run npx skier whenever you change a source file, then refresh. That's a complete Skier build — the rest is deploying it and growing the pipeline.

6. Deploy to Firebase Hosting (~4 min)

Skier's output is a static public/ directory, so it deploys anywhere. Skier's own docs site (the one you're reading) is built by Skier and deployed to Firebase Hosting — here's that same flow for your site.

You'll need a free Firebase project first: create one at console.firebase.google.com and note its project ID. Then install the CLI and sign in:

npm install --save-dev firebase-tools
npx firebase login

Add a firebase.json pointing Firebase at your build output:

{
  "hosting": {
    "public": "public",
    "cleanUrls": true,
    "ignore": ["firebase.json", "**/.*", "**/node_modules/**"]
  }
}

Build, then deploy — pass your project ID with --project (or run npx firebase use --add once to save it in a .firebaserc):

npx skier
npx firebase deploy --only hosting --project your-project-id

The CLI prints your live Hosting URL. To share a change before it goes live, deploy to a temporary preview channel instead:

npx firebase hosting:channel:deploy preview --project your-project-id

Skier's own docs go further

Skier's docs deploy uses separate staging and production hosting targets in firebase.json + .firebaserc, so changes ship to staging first. See those two files in the Skier repo for the real, dogfooded configuration.

Install → build → preview → deploy, done. You have a live site.

Grow the pipeline

Adding capability means adding tasks — the shape never changes. A few common next moves:

Share values across templates with setGlobalsTask. Globals are available to every template as {{variable}}.
Ship CSS and assets with bundleCssTask (concatenate + minify) and copyStaticTask (copy verbatim).
Author pages in Markdown with generateItemsTask, which renders a directory of Markdown files (frontmatter and all) through a Handlebars template.

Order still matters: keep prepareOutputTask first, set globals before the tasks that read them, and generate content before the feeds or sitemaps that index it.

Next steps

Guide	Why
Configuration	Config-file options, CLI flags, and patterns
Task Reference	Every built-in task and its options
Markdown & Frontmatter	Author content in Markdown
Templates & Partials	Handlebars templating and shared partials
Custom Tasks	Write your own task when a built-in doesn't fit
Architecture	How Skier works under the hood
Recipes	Complete, real-world pipelines

Stuck? The FAQ covers common build errors.