Getting started
Make a folder, add two files, run one command.
You need Node 22 or newer.
1. Make the folder
Any folder works. It holds your Markdown, a bakemd.json, and optionally a
_public/ directory for static files.
docs/
bakemd.json
index.md
_public/
favicon.svg
2. Describe the site
bakemd.json needs three fields. Everything else is optional and covered in
configuration.
{
"name": "Teapot",
"site": "https://teapot.example",
"description": "Docs for a server that only answers 418."
}
3. Write the first page
Every page starts with frontmatter. index.md becomes the home page.
---
title: Teapot
nav: Overview
description: What Teapot is and why every answer is 418.
order: 1
updated: 2026-09-08
---
# Teapot
Every request gets a 418. That is the feature.
4. Build
npx bakemd build docs
The site lands in dist/. Serve it with anything that serves files, or read
output and deploy for the nginx and Docker setup.
While writing, the dev server re-reads the Markdown on every request:
npx bakemd dev docs
It prints the URL, port 5174 by default.