astra-ssg

---

name: astra-ssg description: Use when building markdown-driven docs / blog sites with mizchi/astra. Astra is a static-site generator first — astra build writes a pure-static tree to disk and astra dev runs a local preview server. The Mars-middleware form (mizchi/astra/middleware) is a secondary shape for when you need to mount the same content on a long-running server (e.g. sol). astra build itself does not open a network listener and (as of 0.22.3) no longer instantiates a Mars Server — build_to_disk calls Middleware::render_url(url) directly — so the typical deploy is "build once, serve from any static host" (CF Workers Static Assets, GitHub Pages, S3, etc.). Covers (a) the file-to-URL routing rules under docs/ (every .md becomes a route; index.md becomes the directory root; ja/ and other locale dirs are i18n branches), (b) astra.config.json fields (docs_dir, out_dir, nav, sidebar, i18n, islands, spaRoutes, deploy, headSnippets), (c) per-page metadata via frontmatter (title, description, layout, sidebar, revalidate for ISR — the last one only matters when served from Mars) and page.json (ssr, renderer, spa, fallbackBehavior, staticParams), (d) three ways to drop components onto a page — TSX with React renderToString SSR, MoonBit .mbt with pub fn render() -> Node[Unit], or client-side web components in the islands directory, (e) when to reach for the middleware mount instead (sol embedding, on-demand revalidation), and (f) how this composes with sol (no edge: astra has no sol dependency).

astra-ssg

Purpose

mizchi/astra is a markdown-driven static site generator in MoonBit. The primary form is the CLI:

• astra build walks the configured docs_dir, renders every URL in-process, and writes a pure-static tree to out_dir/ (default dist/). No network listener is opened during the build, and as of 0.22.3 the build path does not even instantiate a Mars Server — build_to_disk calls Middleware::render_url(url) directly, which returns the same body bytes the Mars handler would (assets first, then page lookup, otherwise 404). The result is a CDN-friendly bundle that any static host can serve: Cloudflare Workers Static Assets, GitHub Pages, S3 + CloudFront, Vercel/Netlify static, etc.
• astra dev does open a node:http listener for local preview, but only because that's what a dev server needs. Build-and-deploy paths never depend on a running process.

The Mars-middleware form (mizchi/astra/middleware) is a secondary shape for when you specifically want to mount the same content on a long-running server — typically when embedding astra inside a sol app or running ISR-style revalidation. Reaching for the middleware is opt-in; the SSG path does not require Mars to be present at runtime.

Astra has no dependency on sol (deps: mars + markdown + luna). It was extracted out of sol's old SSG mode in 0.16.0. If you see sol new --doc in older notes, it has been removed — use astra directly.

When to use

• Building or maintaining a docs / blog site in this repo (website/ is one such site)
• Adding new markdown pages, navigation entries, or sidebar configuration
• Adding interactive components (TSX, MoonBit, or web components) into otherwise-static pages
• Auditing astra.config.json against the field list below
• Choosing between the default SSG path (astra build → static host) and the middleware mount (sol embedding / ISR with revalidate)

When to reach for the Mars middleware mount instead

Default to astra build + static hosting. Switch to mounting @middleware.create(...) on a Mars Server only when one of these applies:

• You need to serve astra-rendered pages from inside an existing long-running server (sol app, custom Mars worker) and don't want a separate static origin.
• A page genuinely needs on-request rendering — e.g. revalidate: 300 ISR semantics, dynamic content that can't be enumerated at build time, request-driven personalization.
• You want to compose astra under a non-/ base path of a running app whose other routes are dynamic.

For a pure docs / blog site, none of these apply — astra build and a CDN are the right answer.

File-to-URL routing

Astra scans docs_dir (default docs/) recursively and turns every .md file into a route:

File	URL
docs/index.md	/
docs/guide/index.md	/guide/
docs/guide/config.md	/guide/config (or /guide/config/ if trailing_slash: true)
docs/blog/post-1.md	/blog/post-1
docs/ja/index.md	/ja/ (= the ja locale's home, see i18n section)
docs/ja/guide/config.md	/ja/guide/config
docs/[slug]/page.md (dynamic)	template route — populate with staticParams in page.json

The trailing_slash config controls whether routes end with /. The default is false for astra defaults but true in the sol_docs example and in website/.

Excluded paths come from astra.config.json::exclude — e.g. ["internal", "dist-docs"] skips those subtrees.

astra.config.json fields

astra.config.json is the canonical config name. sol.config.json is read only as a fallback when astra.config.json is missing (legacy compatibility — astra/src/cli/cli.mbt is the resolution source of truth).

{
  "$schema": "../path/to/schemas/sol.config.schema.json",
  "title": "My Site",
  "description": "Site description",
  "docs_dir": "docs",
  "out_dir": "dist",
  "base_url": "/",
  "trailing_slash": true,
  "exclude": ["internal", "tmp"],
  "deploy": "cloudflare",

  "nav": [
    { "text": "Guide", "link": "/guide/" },
    { "text": "GitHub", "link": "https://github.com/owner/repo", "icon": "github" }
  ],
  "sidebar": "auto",

  "i18n": {
    "defaultLocale": "en",
    "locales": [
      { "code": "en", "label": "English", "path": "" },
      { "code": "ja", "label": "日本語", "path": "ja" }
    ]
  },

  "islands": {
    "dir": "components",
    "basePath": "/components/"
  },
  "spaRoutes": ["/wiki/"],
  "headSnippets": ["<style>...</style>"],

  "navigation": {
    "spa": true,
    "viewTransitions": false,
    "keyboard": true
  },

  "theme": {
    "socialLinks": [{ "icon": "github", "link": "https://github.com/..." }],
    "footer": { "...": "..." }
  }
}

Key fields:

Field	Purpose
title / description	site-wide metadata, also used as default <title> / meta
docs_dir / out_dir	source / output roots (defaults: docs / dist)
base_url	URL prefix when the site is served under a subpath
trailing_slash	whether routes end with /
exclude	subdirs of docs_dir to skip
nav	top navbar entries (text + link + optional icon)
sidebar	"auto" (folder tree → sidebar) or manual array (see astra/docs/guide/configuration.md)
i18n.defaultLocale / i18n.locales	language switcher, locale-path mapping
islands.dir / islands.basePath	where client-side islands live; rolldown bundles them when astra build runs
spaRoutes	routes that are SPA-navigated rather than full-page reloads
headSnippets	additional <head> content injected on every page
deploy	adapter hint ("cloudflare" etc.) — surfaces in astra build and CI templates

Per-page metadata

Two parallel mechanisms, both optional:

Frontmatter (in the .md file itself)

---
title: My Page Title
description: Page description for <meta>
layout: doc          # or "home", "default"
sidebar: true        # show the sidebar on this page (default: true)
revalidate: 300      # ISR TTL in seconds (only meaningful when served from Mars)
---

# Heading

page.json (alongside the .md in the same directory)

Used for settings that don't belong in markdown frontmatter, or for component-only routes:

{
  "title": "TSX Demo",
  "description": "Demo of TSX SSR",
  "ssr": true,                 // server-render this page (vs. SSG)
  "renderer": "react",         // renderer for TSX components on this page
  "spa": true,                 // page belongs to an SPA-navigated region
  "fallbackBehavior": "spa",   // SPA fallback on 404
  "staticParams": [            // for dynamic routes: enumerate the slug values
    { "slug": "hello-world" },
    { "slug": "getting-started" }
  ]
}

page.json wins over frontmatter for keys that appear in both.

Components on a page

Three ways to add interactive content, pick by use case:

1. TSX (React renderToString)

docs/tsx_demo/tsx_demo.tsx       # default-exported React component
docs/tsx_demo/page.json          # { "renderer": "react", "ssr": true }
docs/tsx_demo/index.md           # optional, the markdown wrapper if you want one

// tsx_demo.tsx
export default function TsxDemo() {
  return <div className="tsx-demo"><h2>Hello</h2></div>;
}

The component is server-rendered at build time. Use this when you want the React ecosystem (hooks, JSX, npm-supplied React components).

2. MoonBit (pub fn render() -> Node[Unit])

docs/ssr_test_component/ssr_test_component.mbt
docs/ssr_test_component/moon.pkg.json          # standard MoonBit package manifest
docs/ssr_test_component/page.json              # { "ssr": true }

using @luna { h, text, attr_static, type Node, type Attr }

pub fn render() -> Node[Unit] {
  h("div", [("class", attr_static("box"))], [
    h("h2", [], [text("Local SSR Component")]),
    h("p", [], [text("Defined in docs/ssr_test_component/")]),
  ])
}

Use this when the component is small, pure, and you don't want a TS toolchain on the page.

3. Client-side web components (islands)

Drop a Custom Element implementation into the configured islands dir (e.g. components/my-counter.js). Reference it in markdown like normal HTML:

## Interactive demo

<my-counter></my-counter>

astra build runs rolldown over islands.dir to produce hashed bundles under islands.basePath, and the runtime loader (loader.js) hydrates the elements on first visibility. This is the path the Luna components site (website/components/) uses.

CLI workflow

# dev server
astra dev

# one-shot static build → out_dir/
astra build

# (no top-level deploy subcommand yet — chain with wrangler / pages CLI;
#  `deploy: "cloudflare"` in astra.config.json only influences template
#  output, not an automated push)

astra is itself a thin native launcher that delegates to a JS CLI under .mooncakes/mizchi/astra/cmd/astra (same pattern as sol). Inside a moon project with mizchi/astra resolved, astra dev works out of the box.

Source of truth

• Config resolution order: astra/src/cli/cli.mbt (astra.config.json → sol.config.json fallback)
• Build pipeline: astra/src/cli/build.mbt
• Dev server: astra/src/cli/dev.mbt
• Mars middleware entry: astra/src/middleware/
• Reference site that exercises every feature: astra/examples/sol_docs/
• Live luna.mbt site (CF Workers Static Assets): website/ — astra.config.json + wrangler.json + the deploy-website GitHub workflow
• User-facing guide pages: astra/docs/guide/{index,configuration,markdown}.md
• Astra vs. sol parity gap notes: astra/docs/parity-notes.md