Super Simple Static Site (ssss)

ssss is a static site generator that uses Jinja2 and Markdown to build fast, lightweight static HTML sites. Scaffold a new site in seconds and run it anywhere.

Installation

The recommended way to install ssss is via pipx, which installs Python CLI tools in isolated environments and makes them available globally:

pipx install ssss

On Arch Linux, install pipx first if needed:

sudo pacman -S python-pipx

Alternatively, if you are in an active virtual environment:

pip install ssss

Usage

Quick start

Run --scaffold to initialize a new project, write starter templates and content, and build the site in one step:

ssss --scaffold

This creates:

ssss.yml                          # configuration file
site/
  source/
    index.md                      # starter content
    _templates/
      base.html                   # HTML base layout (Pico CSS included)
      default.j2                  # default Jinja2 template
  build/
    index.html                    # generated output

Init only

Use --init if you only want to create the configuration file and directory structure, without writing any template or content files:

ssss --init

Build an existing site

Once a configuration file exists, run ssss without any flags to build:

ssss

Use a custom config file

ssss --config path/to/custom.yml

Configuration

Configure your site via ssss.yml. The site section defines site-wide variables accessible in all templates and content files:

site:
  title: My Site
  description: A site built with ssss.
  author: Your Name
  url: https://example.com

Templates

Templates live in site/source/_templates/. ssss uses staticjinja for rendering.

• base.html — base HTML layout, extended by Jinja2 templates
• default.j2 — default template, applied to all Markdown files without a dedicated template
• __<stem>.j2 — template applied only to the content file with the matching stem

The default scaffold includes Pico CSS via CDN — a minimal, classless CSS framework for semantic HTML that makes every page look clean with zero extra effort.

CLI reference

ssss --help

Flag	Description
--scaffold	Create config, directories, and starter files, then build
--init	Create config and directories only
--config, -c	Path to a configuration file
--version, -v	Print the version and exit
--help, -h	Show help and exit