🚀 Static Site Generator

A production-style static site generator built entirely from scratch in Python.

This project parses Markdown documents, transforms them into an intermediate representation, and generates complete HTML pages using a custom rendering engine. It recursively processes directories, copies static assets, applies HTML templates, and produces a deployable static website without relying on external frameworks.

Developed as part of the Boot.dev Backend Developer curriculum, this project demonstrates core software engineering concepts including object-oriented programming, recursive algorithms, parsing, HTML generation, and filesystem automation.

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✨ Features

• 📄 Convert Markdown documents into semantic HTML
• 📝 Support for:
  • Headings
  • Paragraphs
  • Bold
  • Italics
  • Inline code
  • Code blocks
  • Blockquotes
  • Ordered lists
  • Unordered lists
  • Images
  • Hyperlinks
• 🌳 Recursive HTML node rendering using custom node classes
• 📂 Recursive content discovery and page generation
• 🎨 Automatic copying of static assets
• 🧩 HTML template rendering
• 🌐 Configurable base path for GitHub Pages deployment
• ✅ Comprehensive unit test suite using Python's unittest

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Architecture

static_site_generator/
│
├── content/                 # Markdown source files
├── static/                  # CSS, images, favicon
├── docs/                    # Generated production website
│
├── src/
│   ├── main.py
│   ├── generate_page.py
│   ├── markdown_parser.py
│   ├── markdown_blocks.py
│   ├── inline_markdown.py
│   ├── htmlnode.py
│   ├── leafnode.py
│   ├── parentnode.py
│   ├── textnode.py
│   └── ...
│
├── template.html
├── build.sh
├── main.sh
└── README.md

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How It Works

The generator follows a simple compilation pipeline:

Markdown Files
       │
       ▼
Split into Blocks
       │
       ▼
Determine Block Types
       │
       ▼
Parse Inline Markdown
       │
       ▼
Create TextNodes
       │
       ▼
Convert to HTMLNodes
       │
       ▼
Render HTML
       │
       ▼
Inject into Template
       │
       ▼
Copy Static Assets
       │
       ▼
Deployable Static Website

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Technologies Used

• Python 3
• Object-Oriented Programming (OOP)
• Regular Expressions (Regex)
• Recursive Algorithms
• HTML5
• Markdown
• Python Standard Library
• unittest

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Skills Demonstrated

This project demonstrates practical experience with:

• Object-Oriented Design
• Recursive Tree Structures
• Parsing Algorithms
• Markdown Processing
• HTML Generation
• File System Traversal
• Recursive Directory Walking
• Static Site Generation
• Test-Driven Development
• Git & GitHub

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Installation

Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/ikwukao/static_site_generator.git
cd static_site_generator

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Running Locally

Generate the website:

python3 src/main.py

or

./main.sh

The generated site is written to the docs/ directory.

To preview it locally:

cd docs
python3 -m http.server 8888

Visit:

http://localhost:8888

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Production Build

For GitHub Pages deployment:

./build.sh

The build script generates the site using the configured repository base path and outputs the production-ready files into the docs/ directory.

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Running Tests

Run the complete test suite:

./test.sh

or

python3 -m unittest discover -s src

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Example Output

content/
    index.md
    blog/
        post.md

        │

        ▼

docs/
    index.html
    blog/
        post/
            index.html

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Learning Outcomes

Building this project from scratch strengthened my understanding of:

• Designing recursive data structures
• Building parsers without third-party libraries
• Transforming Markdown into HTML
• Recursive filesystem traversal
• Template-based rendering
• Python project organization
• Writing maintainable, testable code

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Future Improvements

• Table support
• Nested lists
• Footnotes
• Syntax highlighting
• Live development server
• Incremental builds
• Plugin architecture
• YAML front matter
• RSS feed generation
• Search indexing

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Acknowledgements

Built as part of the Boot.dev Backend Development curriculum.

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License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.