lazysite

Markdown-driven pages for any CGI-capable web server. No build step, no database, no CMS. Drop a .md file in your docroot and it is served as a fully rendered HTML page. The first request generates the HTML and caches it; every subsequent request is a plain static file.

Features

Content

• Markdown pages with YAML front matter
• Template Toolkit variables in pages and layouts
• Fenced divs, oEmbed, content includes
• Remote pages (.url files that fetch Markdown from a URL)
• Page scan for blog/news index pages
• Registry files: sitemap.xml, llms.txt, RSS, Atom
• TTL-based cache and API/raw output modes

Layouts and themes

• Template Toolkit layout templates (layout.tt)
• Themes nest under lazysite/layouts/LAYOUT/themes/THEME/
• Design tokens auto-emit as CSS custom properties (theme.config)
• Built-in fallback so sites work with zero configuration

Manager

• Browser-based admin at /manager
• Config, Files, Nav, Plugins, Themes, Users, and Cache pages
• Admin bar on site pages for manager users

Authentication

• Built-in cookie auth (lazysite-auth.pl) with users and groups
• Drop-in replacement by any proxy that sets X-Remote-* headers
• Per-page auth: and auth_groups: front matter
• Per-user access mechanisms (browser UI / WebDAV) and generated credentials

Publishing

• WebDAV endpoint (/dav, class 1+2) for headless per-file deploys
• Works with curl, rclone, davfs2, and Explorer/Finder mounts
• Per-user path scopes; off by default, opt-in per user

Forms

• Inline :::form blocks with field validation
• Named dispatch handlers (SMTP, file storage, webhooks)
• Honeypot, HMAC timestamp token, and rate limiting built in

Payment

• x402 payment flow support via payment: front matter

Plugins

• Auto-discovery of CGI scripts and tools via --describe JSON
• Enable, disable, and configure from the manager

Operations

• Structured logging (text or JSON, env or config)
• Link audit (orphaned pages, broken internal links)
• Static site generation for GitHub Pages, Netlify, etc.

Quick start

git clone https://github.com/OpenDigitalCC/lazysite.git
cd lazysite
perl tools/lazysite-server.pl

Open http://localhost:8080/ to browse the starter site.

Browse any folder of Markdown

The dev server can present any tree of Markdown - a docs/ folder, a notes corpus - with no install, no cache, no theme and no index files, writing nothing into the tree:

perl tools/lazysite-server.pl --docroot /path/to/tree --auto-index

--auto-index generates a directory index (folders and pages, with labels from each note's front-matter title) plus a breadcrumb nav for any directory lacking an index.md. Scaffolding is only ever seeded into a real lazysite docroot; an arbitrary tree is left untouched (force seeding off anywhere with --no-seed).

Installation

sudo bash install.sh --docroot /path/to/public_html \
                     --cgibin /path/to/cgi-bin \
                     --domain example.com

The installer is upgrade-aware: re-run against the same --docroot to apply a new release. Seed files you've edited are preserved; backups accumulate at {docroot}/lazysite/backups/. Use --dry-run to preview an upgrade, --restore to roll back.

HestiaCP users: see installers/hestia/. Docker: see installers/docker/.

First sign-in

Open the admin at https://your-site/manager - go straight there rather than the homepage. Some hosts (HestiaCP among them) seed a default index.html, which the web server serves ahead of your lazysite homepage; /manager always works regardless. If your homepage shows that placeholder, remove the stray file: rm -f /path/to/public_html/index.html.

Get the manager password with setup-manager, which creates the manager account, puts it in the admin group, enables the manager in lazysite.conf, and prints a generated password if you don't supply one:

perl tools/lazysite-users.pl --docroot /path/to/public_html setup-manager

(The HestiaCP deploy runs this for you on a fresh install and prints the password in its output.) Pass a password as a final argument to set your own.

Full installation details in starter/docs/install.md.

Connect an AI partner

To let an AI assistant manage the site over the connector (MCP), WebDAV, or the control API, create a partner account, grant it the capabilities it needs, then print its onboarding brief:

perl tools/lazysite-users.pl --docroot /path/to/public_html add my-agent
perl tools/lazysite-users.pl --docroot /path/to/public_html set my-agent manage_content on
perl tools/lazysite-users.pl --docroot /path/to/public_html brief my-agent

brief prints a ready-to-hand-over onboarding document - the connection details, the partner's capabilities, and a fresh single-use pairing key the agent redeems for an access token. (The same brief is offered in the manager UI under Users.) Grant only the capabilities the task needs - e.g. manage_themes for a theme designer, manage_content for a publisher.

Documentation

Browse locally via the dev server, or read the Markdown directly:

• starter/docs/install.md - installation
• starter/docs/authoring.md - writing content
• starter/docs/configuration.md - lazysite.conf, nav, plugins
• starter/docs/layouts.md - layouts and themes
• starter/docs/manager.md - the manager UI
• starter/docs/auth.md - authentication
• starter/docs/forms.md - contact forms
• starter/docs/payment.md - x402 payment
• starter/docs/development.md - dev server, rsync, troubleshooting
• starter/docs/reference.md - keys, variables, file locations

AI-assistant briefings:

• starter/docs/ai-briefing-authoring.md
• starter/docs/ai-briefing-layouts.md
• starter/docs/ai-briefing-configuration.md
• starter/docs/ai-briefing-development.md

Layouts and themes

Ready-to-use layouts and themes live in the companion repo lazysite-layouts. Install a theme zip via the manager Themes page, which unpacks it under lazysite/layouts/LAYOUT/themes/THEME/. Layouts are installed manually or via the "Install from Releases" browser.

Requirements

• Perl 5.10 or later
• Apache or nginx with CGI support
• Template Toolkit (libtemplate-perl on Debian)
• Optional: IO::Socket::SSL for HTTPS SMTP delivery

Licence

MIT. See LICENSE.