Custom

Eleventy now allows the addition of custom template extensions, meaning that you can use Eleventy to process any arbitrary file extension and compile it to your site’s output folder. This feature is Added in v1.0.0.

Introductory Example: *.clowd Jump to heading #

clowd is a pretend templating language that we’ve just created. It uses the .clowd file extension. The purpose of the language is to translate any occurrences of the word cloud to the word butt instead.

module.exports = function(eleventyConfig) {
  // Add as a valid extension to process
  // Alternatively, add this to the list of formats you pass to the `--formats` CLI argument
  eleventyConfig.addTemplateFormats("clowd");

  // "clowd" here means that the extension will apply to any .clowd file
  eleventyConfig.addExtension("clowd", {
    compile: async (inputContent) => {
      // Replace any instances of cloud with butt
      let output = inputContent.replace(/cloud/gi, "butt");

      return async () => {
        return output;
      };
    }
  });
};

Example: Add Sass support to Eleventy Jump to heading #

For a more realistic sample, here’s an example of Eleventy looking for all .scss files in a project’s input directory to process them to your output directory.

// Don’t forget to `npm install sass`!
const sass = require("sass");

module.exports = function(eleventyConfig) {
  eleventyConfig.addTemplateFormats("scss");

  // Creates the extension for use
  eleventyConfig.addExtension("scss", {
    outputFileExtension: "css", // optional, default: "html"

    // `compile` is called once per .scss file in the input directory
    compile: async function(inputContent) {
      let result = sass.compileString(inputContent);

      // This is the render function, `data` is the full data cascade
      return async (data) => {
        return result.css;
      };
    }
  });
};

We’re using compileString from the Sass library above for speed benefits over their asynchronous counterparts (reported by the Sass documentation).

Note also that the data is not used in the above example. This is the full Eleventy data cascade and may be more useful in other templating languages.

The above extension would process a file located at subdir/test.scss to the output directory at _site/subdir/test.css.

Using inputPath Jump to heading #

You can pass in both the file’s inputPath and the Eleventy includes folder to provide a set of directories to look for when using Sass’ @use, @forward, and @import features. Read more about loadPaths on the Sass documentation.

const sass = require("sass");
const path = require("node:path");

module.exports = function(eleventyConfig) {
   // add as a valid template language to process, e.g. this adds to --formats
  eleventyConfig.addTemplateFormats("scss");

  eleventyConfig.addExtension("scss", {
    outputFileExtension: "css", // optional, default: "html"

    // can be an async function
    compile: function (inputContent, inputPath) {
      let parsed = path.parse(inputPath);

      let result = sass.compileString(inputContent, {
        loadPaths: [
          parsed.dir || ".",
          this.config.dir.includes
        ]
      });

      return (data) => {
        return result.css;
      };
    }
  });
};

Make special note of the this.config.dir.includes folder above. Declaring your includes folder means that you don’t need to prefix any file paths with the includes folder name (e.g. _includes/_code.scss can be consumed with @use "code").

Registering Dependencies Added in v2.0.0 Jump to heading #

Eleventy includes two features to improve the performance of custom template compilation:

1. A compilation cache, which you can optionally disable with compileOptions.cache
2. Hooks for incremental builds (via the --incremental command line flag)

To facilitate these features, if a template syntax allows use of other templates (think @use in Sass or webc:import in WebC), Eleventy needs to know about the dependencies a template file relies on. This is heavily dependent on each template compiler.

In our Sass example, this is exposed by Sass via the loadedUrls property from the compileString function, and you can see an example of how we register our dependencies in the compile method below:

    // some configuration truncated …
    compile: function (inputContent, inputPath) {
      let result = sass.compileString(inputContent);

      this.addDependencies(inputPath, result.loadedUrls);

      return async (data) => {
        return result.css;
      };
    }

addDependencies’s first parameter is the parent template file path. The second parameter is an Array of child file paths used by the template. The dependencies can be either relative or absolute paths and we will normalize them as needed.

Skipping a template from inside of the compile function Jump to heading #

To add support for Sass’ underscore convention (file names that start with an underscore aren’t written to the output directory), just return early in the compile function (don’t return a render function).

    // some configuration truncated …
    compile: async function (inputContent, inputPath) {
      let parsed = path.parse(inputPath);
      if(parsed.name.startsWith("_")) {
        return;
      }

      let result = sass.compileString(inputContent);

      return async (data) => {
        return result.css;
      };
    }

Note that files inside of the _includes folder are left out of processing by default, so if you store your sass @use, @forward, and @import files in there you’ll get this for free (see the Using inputPath example above)!

This functionality is more-or-less identical to the compileOptions permalink: false overrides, documented later on this page.

Aliasing an Existing Template Language Jump to heading #

Added in v2.0.0 If key is the only property in the options object, we treat the extension as an alias and use the existing upstream template syntax.

module.exports = function(eleventyConfig) {
  eleventyConfig.addExtension("11ty.jsx", {
    key: "11ty.js",
  });

  // Or, you can pass an array of extensions in v2.0.0 or newer.
  eleventyConfig.addExtension([ "11ty.jsx", "11ty.ts", "11ty.tsx" ], {
    key: "11ty.js",
  });
}

You can use aliasing with esbuild-register to use first-party JSX, TypeScript, and TSX files in Eleventy (using the same conventions as 11ty.js templates, with these templates populating back into the Data Cascade). Check out the full gist from @pspeter3 on GitHub.

node --require esbuild-register node_modules/.bin/eleventy

Overriding a Built-in Template Language Jump to heading #

You can override built-in template languages too! (Thank you to Ben Holmes of Slinkity for this contribution).

In these example, we switch from the Eleventy default markdown-it to marked for markdown processing.

const { marked } = require("marked");

module.exports = function(eleventyConfig) {
  eleventyConfig.addExtension("md", {
    compile: function (inputContent, inputPath) {
      let html = marked.parse(inputContent);

      return function (data) {
        // Example: use `marked` only if useMarked is set in the Data Cascade
        if(data.useMarked) {
          return html;
        }

        // You can also access the default `markdown-it` renderer here:
        return this.defaultRenderer(data);
      };
    }
  });
};

Note that overriding md opts-out of the default pre-processing by another template language Markdown Files. As mentioned elsewhere, improvements to add additional hooks for preprocessing will likely come later.

You can override an existing template language once. Attempts to override an override will throw an error (though this may be relaxed later).

Full Options List Jump to heading #

compile Jump to heading #

• Required for new file extensions. Optional for extension overrides.

compile is an async-friendly function that takes two parameters:

• inputContent: the full content of the file to parse (as a string).
• inputPath: the path to the file (as a string, useful for looking up relative imports)

compile can return:

• nothing (undefined) to indicate that the file should be ignored and not used as a page
• a render function (also async-friendly)

  compile: async (inputContent, inputPath) => {
    return async () => {
      return inputContent;
    };
  }

The render function is passed the merged data object (i.e. the full Data Cascade available inside templates). The render function returned from compile is called once per output file generated (one for basic templates and more for paginated templates).

outputFileExtension Jump to heading #

• Optional: Defaults to html

When the output file is written to the file system, what file extension should be used?

init Jump to heading #

• Optional

An async-friendly function that runs once (no matter how many files use the extension) for any additional setup at the beginning before any compilation or rendering.

Note that init will not re-run on watch/serve mode. If you’d like something that runs before every build, use the eleventy.before event.

{
  init: async function() {
    // has access to current configuration settings in `this.config`
  },
}

read Jump to heading #

• Optional: Defaults to true

Set to false to opt out of reading the contents of files from the file system. This is useful if you’re using an external bundler to read the files (e.g. the Vue plugin uses rollup to read and compile .vue files).

{
  read: false,
}

Use with compileOptions.setCacheKey to get more fine-grained control over how the template is cached.

getData and getInstanceFromInputPath Jump to heading #

• Optional

Controls if and how additional data should be retrieved from a JavaScript object to populate the Data Cascade. If your templates aren’t compiling JavaScript objects, you probably won’t need this.

Notably, this is separate from (in addition to) front matter parsing (which requires read: true). As an example, this is used by the Vue plugin to retrieve the return from the Vue data() function in the Vue component to feed back into the Data Cascade.

{
  // this is the default
  getData: false // no additional data is used
}

{
  getData: async function(inputPath) {
    // DIY, this object will be merged into data cascade
    return {};
  },
}

{
  // get the `data` property from the instance.
  getData: ["data"],
  // * `getData: true` is aliased to ["data"]
  // * You can use more than one property name! ["data", "otherPropName"]

  getInstanceFromInputPath: function(inputPath) {
    // Return the JavaScript object from which the `data` property will be retrieved.
    let instance = doSomethingMyselfToFetchAJavaScriptObject(inputPath);
    return instance;
  }
}

{
  // if getData is `false`, `eleventyDataKey` will not be used.
  getData: true,

  getInstanceFromInputPath: function(inputPath) {
    return {
      // Overrides `getData` for this instance
      eleventyDataKey: ["myOverrideData"],

      // Will not be used
      data: {
        notAvailableOnGlobalData: 456
      },

      // Will be used.
      myOverrideData: {
        availableOnGlobalData: 123
      }
    }
  }
}

compileOptions Jump to heading #

compileOptions.permalink to Override Permalink Compilation Jump to heading #

• Optional

This has the same signature as the compile function and expects a reusable render function to be returned.

{
  compileOptions: {
    permalink: function(contents, inputPath) {
      return (data) => {
        // Return a string to override: you’ll want to use `data.page`
        // Or `return;` (return undefined) to fallback to default behavior
      }
    }
  }
}

• Don’t compile permalink strings in the parent template language
  • permalink: "raw"
• Don’t write any files to the file system:
  • permalink: false
  • permalink: (contents, inputPath) => false
  • permalink: (contents, inputPath) => ((data) => false)
• Override the default permalink function (return a string to override)
  • permalink: (contents, inputPath) => "…"
  • permalink: (contents, inputPath) => ((data) => "…") (use the data cascade)
  • If you return nothing (or undefined), this will revert to the default permalink behavior.

This provides another way to implement Sass’ underscore convention to skip writing the file to the output directory:

// … some configuration truncated

{
  compileOptions: {
    permalink: function(contents, inputPath) {
      let parsed = path.parse(inputPath);
      if(parsed.name.startsWith("_")) {
        return false;
      }
    }
  }
}

compileOptions.spiderJavaScriptDependencies Jump to heading #

• Optional: Defaults to false

Enable to use Eleventy to spider and watch files require’d in these templates. This allows you to control the Watch JavaScript Dependencies feature on a per-template language basis. Most template languages will want the default here and keep this feature disabled.

compileOptions.cache for advanced control of caching Jump to heading #

• Optional: Defaults to the value of read

This controls caching for the compilation step and saves the compiled template function for reuse. For more efficient cleanup (and long term memory use), these caches are now segmented by inputPath (Added in v2.0.0).

By default, whether or not this cache is enabled is tied to boolean value of read. If read: true, then cache will also be true. It’s unlikely you will need this, but you can override this to mismatch read.

You can also granularly control the caching key using a getCacheKey callback. It might be useful to change this when using read: false and contents are unavailable.

{
  read: false,
  compileOptions: {
    cache: true,
    getCacheKey: function(contents, inputPath) {
      // return contents; // this is the default in 1.0

      // return inputPath + contents; // this is the new default in v2.0.0

      return inputPath; // override to cache by inputPath (this means the compile function will not get called when the file contents change)

      // Conditionally opt-out of cache with `return false`
      // if(someArbitraryCondition) {
      //   return false;
      // }
    }
  }
}

isIncrementalMatch Jump to heading #

• Optional

A callback used for advanced control of template dependency matching. This determines if a modified file (from a watch/serve rebuild) is relevant to each known full template file. If the callback returns true, the template will be rendered. If the callback returns false, the template will be skipped.

{
  // Called once for each template (matching this custom template’s file extension) in your project.
  isIncrementalMatch: function(modifiedFile) {
    // is modifiedFile relevant to this.inputPath?
    if (this.isFileRelevantToInputPath) {
      // True if they are the same file
      // Or if they are related by any `addDependencies` relationships
      return true;
    }

    // If `modifiedFile` is not a full template (maybe an include or layout)
    // and we have no record of any dependencies for this file, we re-render everything
    if (!this.doesFileHaveDependencies && !this.isFullTemplate) {
      return true;
    }

    // Skip it
    return false;
  }
}

You can see more advanced override implementations in @11ty/eleventy-plugin-webc and @11ty/eleventy-plugin-vue.

Other pages in Template Languages:

• HTML
• Markdown
• WebC
• JavaScript
• Nunjucks
• Liquid
• Handlebars
• Mustache
• EJS
• HAML
• Pug
• Custom