bengal 0.1.1

A high-performance static site generator with modular architecture

Bengal

A Python static site generator with incremental builds and modular architecture.

⚡ Optimized for Python 3.14

Bengal is the first major SSG optimized for Python 3.14, delivering 515 pages/sec with free-threading—making it the fastest Python SSG available and competitive with Node.js tools like Eleventy.

Performance

• 515 pages/sec with free-threaded Python 3.14t (recommended) ⚡
• 289 pages/sec with standard Python 3.14
• ~250 pages/sec with Python 3.13 (fully supported)
• Sub-second incremental builds for typical changes
• 50x speedup for single-page incremental builds vs full rebuild
• Scales to 10,000+ pages with intelligent caching

Want the speed boost? See INSTALL_FREE_THREADED.md for a 5-minute setup guide.

Features

• Markdown-based content with front matter
• Incremental builds with dependency tracking
• Parallel processing with ThreadPoolExecutor
• Template engine with Jinja2
• Automatic navigation and breadcrumbs
• Taxonomy system (tags, categories)
• Menu system with hierarchical navigation
• Development server with file watching
• API documentation generation from Python source
• SEO features (sitemap, RSS feeds)
• Health validation system

Requirements

Python 3.13 or later

Recommended: Python 3.14t (free-threaded) for 1.8x faster rendering. See INSTALL_FREE_THREADED.md for setup instructions.

Installation

Using uv (recommended):

# Install uv
curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh

# Install Bengal
uv pip install -e .

Using pip:

pip install -e .

Quick Start

# Create a new site
bengal new site mysite
cd mysite

# Create a new page
bengal new page my-first-post

# Build the site
bengal build

# Start development server with file watching
bengal serve

Build Profiles

Bengal provides different build profiles for different use cases:

• Default: Minimal output focused on errors and warnings
• Theme Developer (--theme-dev): Extra template and navigation validation
• Developer (--dev): Full debug output with memory profiling and performance metrics

Architecture

Bengal uses a modular architecture with clear separation between Site, Page, Section, and Asset objects. The rendering pipeline processes Markdown content through templates and applies post-processing steps. An incremental build system tracks file changes and dependencies to rebuild what's necessary.

See ARCHITECTURE.md for details.

Configuration

Create a bengal.toml or bengal.yaml in your project root:

[site]
title = "My Bengal Site"
baseurl = "https://example.com"
theme = "default"

[build]
output_dir = "public"
incremental = true
parallel = true

[assets]
minify = true
fingerprint = true

# Special search page (optional overrides)
[search]
enabled = true
path = "/search/"
template = "search.html"

Project Structure

mysite/
├── bengal.toml          # Site configuration
├── content/             # Your content files
│   ├── index.md
│   └── posts/
│       └── first-post.md
├── templates/           # Custom templates
│   ├── base.html
│   └── partials/
├── assets/              # Static assets
│   ├── css/
│   ├── js/
│   └── images/
└── public/              # Generated output

Commands

# Build site
bengal build

# Build with options
bengal build --incremental  # Rebuild changed files
bengal build --strict       # Fail on errors (for CI)

# Generate API documentation
bengal autodoc --source mylib --output content/api

# Development server (default: 5173)
bengal serve --port 5173

# Clean output
bengal clean

Themes

# List available themes (project | installed | bundled)
bengal theme list

# Show info about a theme slug (paths, version)
bengal theme info <slug>

# Discover swizzlable templates/partials in active theme chain
bengal theme discover

# Install a theme via uv/pip (warns if name is non-canonical)
bengal theme install bengal-theme-starter

# Scaffold a new theme
## Site-local theme under themes/<slug>
bengal theme new mybrand --mode site --output .
## Installable package scaffold in current directory
bengal theme new mybrand --mode package --output .

Configuration to select a theme:

[site]
theme = "mybrand"  # Uses project themes/mybrand, installed bengal-theme-mybrand, or bundled

Naming convention for installable themes (recommended): bengal-theme-<slug>.

API Documentation

Bengal can generate API documentation from Python source code using AST parsing. Configure in bengal.toml:

[autodoc.python]
enabled = true
source_dirs = ["src/mylib"]
output_dir = "content/api"
docstring_style = "auto"  # auto, google, numpy, sphinx

exclude = [
    "*/tests/*",
    "*/__pycache__/*",
]

include_private = false
include_special = false

The auto-doc system uses AST-based extraction (no imports required) and supports Google, NumPy, and Sphinx documentation formats.

Development Status

Bengal is functional and under active development.

See ARCHITECTURE.md for technical details.

License

MIT License