Configuring your build

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Jekyll is one of the first popular SSGs. Learn how you can customize Jekyll and the build environment to your needs.

Sites without a Gemfile are built with:

jekyll build

Sites with a Gemfile are built with:

bundle install
bundle exec jekyll build

These commands are run in the root folder of your site.

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Hugo is a popular SSG built using Golang.

Hugo sites are built with:

hugo

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Eleventy (or 11ty) is a popular static site generator built with Node.js.

Eleventy sites are built with:

npx @11ty/eleventy

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Static is the most basic SSG option available on CloudCannon.

Files are copied to the live site as-is. CloudCannon performs optimizations and processes static-specific hosting features on the files.

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CloudCannon provides a build command for each known SSG, and this can be changed to suit your build. The build command is set in the build configuration when you select an SSG.

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CloudCannon supports Jekyll versions after 2.4.0. New sites without the version set use a default version. The version is displayed in the Status section after each build.

To set the version:

1. Add a Gemfile to the root folder
2. Add the jekyll dependency to your Gemfile
3. Set the version as required

source "https://rubygems.org"
gem "jekyll", "~> 4.1.1"

By default, CloudCannon uses /Gemfile as the gem source. To change this you can set the BUNDLE_GEMFILE environment variable (e.g. BUNDLE_GEMFILE=src/Gemfile).

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By default CloudCannon builds using Hugo version 0.96.0_extended. You can change which version of Hugo your build uses by running the install-hugo command in a preinstall hook.

install-hugo 0.98.0

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CloudCannon builds with any version of Eleventy, although is focused from version v0.12.1 onward.

Since we build Eleventy sites with npx, the latest version is run unless specified otherwise in package.json.

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CloudCannon uses the version you specify for your SSG with npm or another package manager.

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CloudCannon defaults to production. Running Jekyll locally defaults to development.

$ JEKYLL_ENV=production bundle exec jekyll serve

Jekyll exposes the environment with jekyll.environment. You can use this to create separate configurations.

Here’s a short example using variables from _config.yml:

development:
  asset_url: "http://localhost:1337/"
  app_url: "http://localhost:3000/"

staging:
  asset_url: "https://staging.example.org/assets/"
  app_url: "https://staging.example.org/"

production:
  asset_url: "https://cdn.example.org/"
  app_url: "https://app.example.org/"

---
---

<p>Environment: {{ jekyll.environment }}</p>
<p>Asset URL: {{ site[jekyll.environment].asset_url }}</p>
<p>App URL: {{ site[jekyll.environment].app_url }}</p>
<p>Development Asset URL: {{ site.development.asset_url }}</p>
<p>Production Asset URL: {{ site.production.asset_url }}</p>
<p>Staging Asset URL: {{ site.staging.asset_url }}</p>
<p>Development App URL: {{ site.development.app_url }}</p>
<p>Staging App URL: {{ site.staging.app_url }}</p>
<p>Production App URL: {{ site.production.app_url }}</p>

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CloudCannon defaults to production. Running hugo locally defaults to production. Running hugo server locally defaults to development.

To change the environment locally, set it before running Hugo:

$ HUGO_ENV=production hugo

You can set the Hugo environment using the —-environment flag in the command line. Learn more about build configuration.

Hugo exposes the environment with hugo.Environment.

Using a configuration directory allows you to create separate configurations for each environment. See the example in the Hugo documentation.

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CloudCannon has no default. You should set your environment variables everywhere you need them before building. The Eleventy documentation mentions ELEVENTY_ENV as a convention.

To change the environment locally, set it before running Eleventy:

$ ELEVENTY_ENV=production npx @11ty/eleventy

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CloudCannon does not set default environment variables for custom SSGs.

To change an environment variable locally, set it before running your build command:

  $ MY_ENV_VAR=hello <build command>