Configuration Reference

Accent CMS is configured through a config.yaml file in your project root. All fields have sensible defaults, so a minimal config works out of the box. CLI arguments override config values when both are provided.

Minimal Configuration

A working config.yaml needs very little:

site:
  name: My Website

Everything else uses defaults. See each section below for the full set of fields.

site

Site-level metadata available in templates via the site variable.

Field	Type	Default	Description
site.name	string	"My Website"	Site title displayed in templates
site.description	string	""	Site description for meta tags
site.url	string		Base URL for absolute links (required for RSS feed, sitemap, and robots.txt Sitemap directive)
site.base_path	string	""	URL prefix for sub-path deployments (e.g. a GitHub Pages project site served under /repo). Normalized to a leading slash with no trailing slash.
site.language	string	"en"	Default language code
site.languages	list	[]	Supported language codes for i18n. When two or more entries are listed, the site becomes multilingual. The default language must be included.
site.main_site	map	unset	Optional link block back to a main/product site this deployment fronts. When unset, the default theme renders no outbound affordances.
site.main_site.url	string	required	Main-site URL the header wordmark and footer link target. Must be non-empty – an empty value is rejected at config load.
site.main_site.label	string	site.name	Wordmark text. Fallback applies only when unset; an explicit empty string renders an icon-only wordmark.
site.main_site.badge_label	string	"Docs"	Text of the header chip that links back to this site’s own home page.
site.main_site.cta_label	string	unset	Call-to-action button text. The button renders only when both cta_label and cta_url are set.
site.main_site.cta_url	string	unset	Call-to-action target URL (e.g. a pricing page).

site:
  name: My Blog
  description: A personal blog about Rust and web development
  url: https://example.com
  language: en
  languages: [en, de, fr]

site.base_path

When set, every internal URL Accent emits – page links, theme assets, media, search fetch paths and result URLs, llms.txt links, .md redirect stubs, pagination, and tag links – carries the prefix. This lets a static build work correctly when served from a sub-path, such as a GitHub Pages project site (https://user.github.io/repo/).

base_path is normalized at load time: a leading slash is added if missing and a trailing slash is stripped, so repo, /repo, and /repo/ all resolve to /repo.

Auto-derivation: if site.base_path is left unset and site.url (or the --base-url build flag) contains a non-root path component, the base path is derived from it automatically and logged at INFO. For example, site.url: https://username.github.io/repo alone derives a base path of /repo, with no further configuration needed. An explicit site.base_path always wins over derivation, and setting it to an empty string explicitly disables derivation.

site:
  url: https://username.github.io/repo
  base_path: /repo   # optional -- would otherwise be derived from the path in site.url

Divergence from site.url: an explicit base_path can be set to a value other than the path component of site.url – for example site.url: https://username.github.io/repo with base_path: /other. This is allowed, but absolute URLs (sitemap, feeds, canonical links, JSON-LD) always use site.url as their base and append the resolved base_path to it, so the result is https://username.github.io/repo/other/..., not https://username.github.io/other/.... Accent logs a startup warning when it detects this divergence. Set site.base_path to match the path already in site.url (or omit it and rely on derivation) unless the deployed site genuinely serves content at site.url’s path plus the extra prefix.

site.main_site

Declares the main/product site a satellite deployment (typically a docs site) belongs to. Templates receive it as site.main_site, including a derived host field for compact link text. The default theme uses the block for its header brand split, call-to-action button, and footer link; see Linking Back to a Main Site in the Theming Guide for what renders where.

site:
  main_site:
    url: https://example.com
    label: Example              # optional; defaults to site.name
    badge_label: Docs           # optional; text of the back-to-home chip
    cta_label: Get a license    # optional; CTA renders only with both cta_* keys
    cta_url: https://example.com/pricing

server

HTTP server bind settings.

Field	Type	Default	Description
server.address	string	"127.0.0.1"	Bind address. Use "0.0.0.0" to listen on all interfaces.
server.port	integer	4400	Bind port

server:
  address: "0.0.0.0"
  port: 8080

theme

Theme selection and directory settings.

Field	Type	Default	Description
theme.name	string	"default"	Active theme name (must match a directory under theme.directory)
theme.directory	string	"./themes"	Base directory containing theme directories

theme:
  name: default
  directory: ./themes

content

Content directory and permalink settings.

Field	Type	Default	Description
content.directory	string	"./content"	Root directory for site content
content.md_extension_redirects	bool	true	Auto-redirect .md URLs (e.g. /blog.md) to their clean URL. Set false to suppress the per-page redirect stubs in accent build and the 301s in accent serve
content.permalinks	map	{}	URL prefix-to-pattern map for date-based or custom URL structures

content.permalinks

Permalink patterns transform page URLs based on frontmatter metadata. Each key is a URL prefix (section), and the value is a pattern string with tokens that expand at load time. Pages whose directory-derived URL starts with a configured prefix get their URL rewritten; all other pages are unaffected.

Section index pages (e.g., default.md at /blog) are never transformed – only child pages.

The pattern replaces the entire URL, it does not extend the prefix. A page under /blog matched by /blog: "/:year/:month/:slug" becomes /2026/01/welcome, not /blog/2026/01/welcome. Re-include the prefix with the :section token when you want to keep it – that is what the examples below do.

Available tokens:

Token	Source	Example
:year	4-digit year from frontmatter date	2026
:month	Zero-padded month from date	01
:day	Zero-padded day from date	25
:slug	Filename stem or frontmatter slug override	welcome
:title	Slugified frontmatter title	welcome-to-accent
:section	Parent section name from the prefix	blog

Date tokens (:year, :month, :day) require a date field in frontmatter. If missing, the page keeps its directory-based URL and a warning is logged.

Frontmatter overrides:

• slug – Overrides the :slug token value (e.g., slug: hello-world produces /blog/2026/01/hello-world from the pattern above, instead of using the filename).
• url – Bypasses permalink patterns entirely and sets an absolute URL (e.g., url: /custom/path).

When a permalink pattern rewrites a page URL, the original directory-based URL automatically returns a 301 redirect to the new URL. In static builds, a small HTML redirect file is generated at the old path.

content:
  directory: ./content
  permalinks:
    /blog: "/:section/:year/:month/:slug"
    /events: "/:section/:year/:month/:day/:slug"
    /news: "/:section/:year/:slug"

content.md_extension_redirects

Accent computes clean URLs by stripping the .md extension, then auto-generates a redirect so a GitHub-style link (/blog.md) resolves to the clean URL (/blog) instead of returning 404. In accent serve this is a 301; in accent build it is a small meta-refresh stub carrying a canonical link to the clean URL (e.g. public/blog.md/index.html). The stubs are excluded from sitemap.xml and feed.xml, and the home page is never redirected.

This is useful for documentation sites whose internal links use .md suffixes. If your site only ever links to clean URLs, set the flag to false to skip the redirects entirely – no build stubs, and .md URLs return a normal 404:

content:
  md_extension_redirects: false

When Markdown View is enabled in HTML mode, .md URLs serve the raw markdown source regardless of this setting.

media

Media serving and image processing settings. Media processing runs in accent build and dev serve with no license; serving in production requires a Standard or Pro license.

Field	Type	Default	Description
media.directory	string	"./media"	Shared media library directory
media.page_local	bool	true	Enable page-local media serving (files alongside content .md files)
media.serve_at_page_url	bool	true	Also serve page-local media at the bare page URL (alias for /content-media/...)

media.processing Free

On-demand image processing runs in dev serve with no license; serving in production requires a Standard or Pro license.

Field	Type	Default	Description
media.processing.enabled	bool	false	Enable image processing (resizing, format conversion)
media.processing.jpeg_quality	integer	85	Default JPEG output quality (1-100)
media.processing.webp_quality	integer	80	Default WebP output quality (1-100)
media.processing.max_dimension	integer	4096	Maximum resize dimension in pixels
media.processing.responsive_widths	list	[320, 640, 960, 1280, 1920]	Responsive image breakpoints in pixels

media.cache

Cache for processed media files.

Field	Type	Default	Description
media.cache.directory	string	"./.media-cache"	Directory for processed media cache
media.cache.max_size_mb	integer	500	Maximum cache size in megabytes

media.attachments

Deliberate file downloads for extensions outside the serving allowlist.

Field	Type	Default	Description
media.attachments.extensions	list	[]	Extensions (without the leading dot, matched case-insensitively) served as forced downloads

By default, Accent only serves files whose extension is on a hardcoded allowlist (images, video, audio, PDF, HTML, and common structured-data formats); anything else – an install script, an archive, a certificate – is silently excluded from both accent serve and accent build output. Listing an extension here makes such files resolvable on every media path (the shared /media/ library, page-local /content-media/ files, and the bare-URL alias), but they are always delivered as a download: Content-Type: application/octet-stream with Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="...". There is no way to configure inline rendering for a new extension.

Rules:

• Attachment wins on overlap. Listing an extension that is also on the inline allowlist (for example pdf or html) makes those files download instead of rendering. The list can only ever make delivery stricter, never looser.
• Hard rejections stay hard. Markdown sources and dotfiles are never served regardless of this list; listing md is a configuration error.
• Static builds publish the files but cannot send the headers. A statically hosted download may render as plain text in the browser unless your host lets you configure a Content-Disposition header for it. See offering file downloads.
• The list is read per request, so a SIGHUP config reload applies changes without a restart.

media:
  directory: ./media
  page_local: true
  serve_at_page_url: true   # alias /content-media/{path} at the bare page URL
  processing:
    enabled: true
    jpeg_quality: 85
    webp_quality: 80
    max_dimension: 4096
    responsive_widths: [320, 640, 960, 1280, 1920]
  cache:
    directory: ./.media-cache
    max_size_mb: 500
  attachments:
    extensions: ["sh", "zip", "pem"]

Bare-URL alias for page-local media

When media.serve_at_page_url: true (the default), files placed next to a page’s default.md / README.md / index.md are reachable at two URLs:

• The canonical /content-media/<page>/<file> route, and
• The bare page URL: /<page>/<file>.

Page URLs always win over the alias, so a sub-page at /blog/post/ shadows any media file that would resolve to the same URL. Markdown files are never aliased – the .md/.markdown rejection from the shared media route is reused. Sites that rely on 404s at bare media URLs (CDN fallthrough, strict URL contracts) can opt out by setting media.serve_at_page_url: false.

A single page can also opt its sibling files out of the alias via frontmatter without disabling it site-wide:

---
title: Internal Drafts
media:
  expose: false
---

When media.expose: false is set on a page, the alias returns 404 for any sibling file in that page’s directory; the file is still reachable at /content-media/... for theme references.

accent build emits the same two routes, so a bare page-local URL authored while developing against accent serve is deploy-safe: the static output carries both output/content-media/<page>/<file> and output/<page>/<file> for every page-local media file, and the two are byte-identical. media.serve_at_page_url: false is a single opt-out that covers both surfaces consistently – it disables the bare-URL alias in accent serve and stops the build from emitting the bare-URL copy, while the canonical /content-media/... route is unaffected in either mode. A rendered page’s own output always wins: if a page-local media filename would collide with a page’s index.html, the build keeps the rendered page and skips the media copy at that path (logged as a warning), exactly like a real page shadows the alias in accent serve.

One layout is a partial exception: pages that live in a numbered sort directory (e.g. content/01.getting-started/default.md, URL /getting-started) are never reachable at their bare URL in either mode, because the bare-URL resolver is a literal filesystem path join with no numeric-prefix stripping – only the canonical /content-media/getting-started/... route (which is keyed by the clean URL, not a filesystem path) works for these pages. This is a pre-existing property of the serve_at_page_url alias, not something the build introduces.

dev

Development settings. All dev features are automatically disabled when accent serve --production is used.

Field	Type	Default	Description
dev.hot_reload	bool	true	Enable file watching for templates, content, theme config, and assets
dev.browser_reload	bool	true	Enable browser auto-refresh via Server-Sent Events at /_dev/reload
dev.debounce_ms	integer	500	Debounce delay in milliseconds before processing file changes
dev.show_drafts	bool	false	Show pages with status: draft or status: review in frontmatter
dev.debug	bool	false	Enable the ?acdbg debug panel for inspecting template context

dev:
  hot_reload: true
  browser_reload: true
  debounce_ms: 100
  show_drafts: false
  debug: true

Hot reload performance

After a content change, the server rebuilds its content index in the background right away, so the browser’s auto-refresh lands on a warm cache instead of waiting for the rebuild itself. Concurrent requests share a single rebuild rather than each rescanning the content directory, and the search index refresh reuses the same shared index.

The rebuild cost scales with site size and build profile. On large sites (hundreds of pages), run the dev server from a release build – cargo run --release -- serve ... or a release accent binary – which rebuilds the index an order of magnitude faster than a debug build while keeping hot reload fully active.

cache

Page rendering cache settings.

Field	Type	Default	Description
cache.max_size_mb	integer	50	Maximum cache size in megabytes
cache.ttl_seconds	integer	3600	Time-to-idle in seconds before cached entries expire
cache.warming	boolean	false	Pre-render all pages at startup to eliminate cold-start latency

cache:
  max_size_mb: 100
  ttl_seconds: 7200
  warming: true    # recommended for production

http_headers

HTTP response header settings for caching and CORS. Applied to all responses via middleware.

These settings apply to accent serve only — a static build writes files, and files carry no HTTP headers. To carry this policy onto a static host, set build.header_artifacts, which generates the host’s own header configuration from this same section.

http_headers.cache

Controls Cache-Control, ETag, and Vary headers per content type. In dev mode, all responses get Cache-Control: no-store regardless of these settings.

Field	Type	Default	Description
http_headers.cache.enabled	boolean	true	Enable cache headers in production
http_headers.cache.defaults.pages	string	"public, max-age=300, s-maxage=3600"	Cache-Control for HTML pages
http_headers.cache.defaults.assets	string	"public, max-age=31536000, immutable"	Cache-Control for CSS/JS/WASM
http_headers.cache.defaults.media	string	"public, max-age=86400"	Cache-Control for images/media
http_headers.cache.defaults.fonts	string	"public, max-age=31536000, immutable"	Cache-Control for font files
http_headers.cache.defaults.feed	string	"public, max-age=3600"	Cache-Control for RSS/Atom feeds
http_headers.cache.routes	array	[]	Per-route cache-control overrides (first match wins)

http_headers.cors

CORS (Cross-Origin Resource Sharing) headers. Disabled by default. When enabled, supersedes the legacy api.cors setting.

Field	Type	Default	Description
http_headers.cors.enabled	boolean	false	Enable CORS headers globally
http_headers.cors.allowed_origins	array	[]	Allowed origins (use ["*"] for any)
http_headers.cors.allowed_methods	array	["GET", "HEAD", "OPTIONS"]	Allowed HTTP methods
http_headers.cors.allowed_headers	array	["Content-Type", "Accept"]	Allowed request headers
http_headers.cors.expose_headers	array	["ETag", "Last-Modified"]	Response headers exposed to client
http_headers.cors.max_age	integer	86400	Preflight cache duration in seconds
http_headers.cors.routes	array	[]	Per-route CORS overrides (first match wins)

http_headers:
  cache:
    defaults:
      pages: "public, max-age=600, s-maxage=3600"
    routes:
      - path: "/api/*"
        cache_control: "no-store"
  cors:
    enabled: true
    allowed_origins:
      - "https://example.com"
      - "https://cdn.example.com"
    routes:
      - path: "/api/*"
        allowed_origins: ["*"]
        allowed_methods: ["GET", "HEAD", "POST", "PUT", "DELETE", "OPTIONS"]

http_headers.security

Baseline security response headers, applied to every response. These harden the site against MIME sniffing, clickjacking, base-URI hijacking, and abuse of uploaded files (notably scriptable SVG). Enabled by default with safe values.

Field	Type	Default	Description
http_headers.security.enabled	boolean	true	Master switch for all security headers
http_headers.security.content_type_options	boolean	true	Emit X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff
http_headers.security.frame_options	string | null	"SAMEORIGIN"	X-Frame-Options value (null to omit)
http_headers.security.referrer_policy	string | null	"strict-origin-when-cross-origin"	Referrer-Policy value (null to omit)
http_headers.security.content_security_policy	string | null	"object-src 'none'; base-uri 'self'; frame-ancestors 'self'"	Baseline CSP for page responses
http_headers.security.media_content_security_policy	string | null	"default-src 'none'; sandbox"	Strict CSP for served media responses
http_headers.security.routes	list	[]	Per-route header overrides (first match wins)

The default page CSP deliberately carries no script-src or default-src, so it does not interfere with theme or admin inline scripts; it still blocks plugin/embed (object-src), base-tag hijacking (base-uri), and framing (frame-ancestors). Media responses additionally receive the strict media CSP, and an image/svg+xml response is served with Content-Disposition: attachment so a scriptable SVG downloads instead of rendering inline. A header is only set if a handler did not already set it.

http_headers:
  security:
    enabled: true
    frame_options: "SAMEORIGIN"
    referrer_policy: "strict-origin-when-cross-origin"
    content_security_policy: "object-src 'none'; base-uri 'self'; frame-ancestors 'self'"
    media_content_security_policy: "default-src 'none'; sandbox"

Per-route overrides (http_headers.security.routes)

Scope a different policy to specific paths without touching the site-wide defaults. Each entry matches the request path against a glob pattern; entries are evaluated top-to-bottom and the first match wins, exactly like the cache and CORS route overrides.

Field	Type	Description
path	string	Glob pattern for the request path (required)
content_security_policy	string	CSP for matching responses; replaces the page or media default
frame_options	string	X-Frame-Options for matching responses
referrer_policy	string	Referrer-Policy for matching responses

Fields left unset inherit the corresponding global value. A matched route’s CSP replaces whichever default (page or media) would otherwise apply. X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff and the SVG download disposition are site-wide invariants and cannot be overridden per route.

Patterns support three forms: a trailing /* matches the prefix and everything below it (/content-media/designsystem/*), a bare path matches exactly, and general globs use * for one path segment and ** across segments (/content-media/**/*.html).

http_headers:
  security:
    routes:
      - path: "/content-media/designsystem/*"
        content_security_policy: "default-src 'self'; img-src 'self' data:; style-src 'self' 'unsafe-inline'"
      - path: "/embed/*"
        frame_options: "DENY"

Precedence per header, highest first: a value set by the route handler itself, then the first matching route override, then the page/media default. Overrides are read per request, so a SIGHUP config reload applies them without a restart.

The typical use is un-breaking iframe-embedded HTML served through /content-media/, which the strict media CSP otherwise strips of styles, images, and scripts – see the iframe shortcode guide for the copy-paste example.

build

Static site generation settings, used by accent build.

Field	Type	Default	Description
build.fingerprint	object	disabled	Asset fingerprinting for cache busting – see the asset fingerprinting guide
build.header_artifacts	array	[]	Deploy-target response-header artifacts to emit at the output root

header_artifacts accepts "netlify" (writes _headers) and "apache" (writes .htaccess). Each artifact is generated from http_headers and media.attachments, so the served policy and the deployed policy cannot drift. A rule that a target’s syntax cannot express exactly fails the build rather than shipping a weaker artifact.

build:
  header_artifacts: ["netlify", "apache"]

See response headers on static hosting for what gets translated, the fail-closed contract, and the hosts that have no header mechanism at all.

build.routing

Routing directives written into those same artifacts. The emitter already derives the clean-URL rules on its own, because those express the URL shape the build committed to in its sitemap and canonical tags. This block is the opposite: facts about the deployment that the output tree cannot show.

Field	Type	Default	Description
build.routing.error_document	string	unset	Site-absolute path served for a 404
build.routing.canonical_host	string	unset	The one host this deployment answers on
build.routing.redirects	array	[]	Redirects the host should serve, in order

build:
  header_artifacts: ["apache"]
  routing:
    error_document: /404.html
    canonical_host: example.com
    redirects:
      - from: /install.sh
        to: https://example.invalid/install.sh
      - from: /old-page
        to: /new-page
        status: 302          # optional; 301 when omitted

canonical_host emits a 301 from the host’s www/apex counterpart – www.example.com when set to example.com, and example.com when set to www.example.com. It deliberately does not redirect every other host, because that also captures preview and staging deployments, which are legitimately reachable under another name. The redirect target is always https.

A redirect to starting with / is site-relative and carries the deployment prefix along with from; anything else is used verbatim, which is how an off-site target is written. status accepts 301, 302, 307 and 308.

The block is inert when absent, so a site that never sets it produces byte-identical output. It currently has no expression in the netlify target, which carries redirects in a separate _redirects file – configuring both is a build error rather than a deployment silently missing its rules.

markdown

Toggles for individual pulldown-cmark markdown parser extensions. All extensions are enabled by default. Set any field to false to disable that extension.

Field	Type	Default	Description
markdown.tables	bool	true	GFM tables (| A | B | syntax)
markdown.footnotes	bool	true	New-style footnotes ([^label])
markdown.strikethrough	bool	true	Strikethrough (~~text~~)
markdown.tasklists	bool	true	Task lists (- [x] / - [ ])
markdown.heading_attributes	bool	true	Heading attributes (# Heading { .class #id })
markdown.wikilinks	bool	true	Wiki-style links ([[page]])
markdown.smart_punctuation	bool	true	Smart punctuation (curly quotes, -- en-dash, --- em-dash)
markdown.math	bool	true	LaTeX-style math ($inline$, $$display$$)
markdown.definition_lists	bool	true	Definition lists
markdown.gfm	bool	true	Miscellaneous GFM extensions (currently: block-quote alerts like > [!NOTE])
markdown.superscript	bool	true	Superscript (^text^)
markdown.subscript	bool	true	Subscript (~text~). When enabled, single-tilde is subscript; double-tilde remains strikethrough.
markdown.metadata_blocks	bool	true	YAML (---) and pluses (+++) metadata block parsing
markdown.locale	string	(unset)	Override the typographic locale used by smart-quote remapping. ISO 639-1 codes (de, fr, pl, sv, fi, cs, ja, zh, …). When unset, the page’s language (which falls back to site.language) is used.

markdown:
  tables: true
  footnotes: true
  strikethrough: true
  tasklists: true
  heading_attributes: true
  wikilinks: true
  smart_punctuation: true
  math: true
  definition_lists: true
  gfm: true
  superscript: true
  subscript: true
  metadata_blocks: true
  locale: de   # optional: forces German curly-quote conventions

markdown.smart_quotes

Deployment-level overrides to the canonical smart-quote spec. Lets a site flip inner-guillemet spacing or replace a locale’s quote characters wholesale without forking the spec JSON. An empty (or omitted) section is a no-op.

Field	Type	Default	Description
markdown.smart_quotes.inner_space.default	enum	(unset)	Site-wide inner-guillemet spacing override. One of none, nbsp, thin. Beats the spec’s per-locale value – set this to enforce one spacing rule across every locale.
markdown.smart_quotes.inner_space.per_locale	map	(empty)	Per-locale exceptions. Keys are canonical BCP-47 tags (fr-FR, de-CH). Each entry overrides the spec’s value for that exact tag.
markdown.smart_quotes.locales	map	(empty)	Wholesale quote-character replacement, keyed by canonical BCP-47 tag. Each entry must specify both double and single as { open, close } pairs. Other spec fields (inner spacing, nested-override behaviour, writing direction) are preserved.

Resolution priority for inner spacing (highest first):

1. markdown.smart_quotes.inner_space.per_locale[<tag>] – exact canonical match
2. markdown.smart_quotes.inner_space.per_locale[<language>] – language-only fallback
3. markdown.smart_quotes.inner_space.default
4. Spec’s locales[<tag>].innerSpace
5. Spec’s innerSpace.globalDefault

The same exact -> language resolution applies to the wholesale locales map: a locales: { de: ... } entry covers de-CH, de-AT, and any other German variant.

Non-canonical YAML keys (de_ch, FR-fr) are rewritten into canonical BCP-47 form at config load. Two entries that canonicalise to the same form are rejected as a collision. Unknown locale tags are rejected with a clear error message; region-only fall-throughs are accepted (de-LI validates because de is in the spec).

markdown:
  smart_quotes:
    inner_space:
      default: thin             # flip every locale to thin spaces
      per_locale:
        fr-FR: nbsp              # but keep NBSP for fr-FR
        de-CH: none              # and drop spacing from Swiss German
    locales:
      # Editorial-style override: Norwegian site that prefers curly
      # doubles over the spec's guillemets.
      nb:
        double: { open: "\u{201C}", close: "\u{201D}" }
        single: { open: "\u{2018}", close: "\u{2019}" }

Reload with pkill -HUP accent (or POST /_admin/reload) without restarting the server.

code

Syntax highlighting settings for fenced code blocks.

Field	Type	Default	Description
code.theme	string	"base16-ocean.dark"	Syntax highlighting theme name (uses syntect themes). Set to "" to disable highlighting.

code:
  theme: "InspiredGitHub"

feed

RSS 2.0 feed generation. Only pages with a date field in frontmatter are included.

Field	Type	Default	Description
feed.enabled	bool	true	Enable RSS feed generation
feed.limit	integer	20	Maximum number of entries in the feed
feed.path	string	"/feed.xml"	URL path where the feed is served

For absolute URLs in feed entries (required by the RSS specification), set site.url.

feed:
  enabled: true
  limit: 20
  path: /feed.xml

search

Client-side search index generation. See the Search guide for usage details.

Field	Type	Default	Description
search.enabled	bool	true	Generate the search index
search.min_word_length	integer	2	Minimum word length for indexing
search.content_length	integer	200	Maximum characters of plain-text content stored per page
search.exclude	list	[]	URL glob patterns to exclude (e.g., "/404", "/tags/*")

search.fields

Field weights for relevance scoring. Higher values rank matches in that field higher.

Field	Type	Default	Description
search.fields.title	float	3.0	Weight for title matches
search.fields.content	float	1.0	Weight for body content matches
search.fields.tags	float	2.0	Weight for tag matches
search.fields.lead	float	1.5	Weight for lead/excerpt matches

search:
  enabled: true
  min_word_length: 2
  content_length: 200
  exclude:
    - "/404"
    - "/tags/*"
  fields:
    title: 3.0
    content: 1.0
    tags: 2.0
    lead: 1.5

robots

robots.txt generation.

Field	Type	Default	Description
robots.enabled	bool	true	Enable robots.txt serving at /robots.txt
robots.rules	string	(auto-generated)	Custom robots.txt rules. When omitted, default rules are generated. A Sitemap: directive is appended when site.url is set.

robots:
  enabled: true
  rules: |
    User-agent: *
    Allow: /
    Disallow: /admin/

well_known

Serve files from a .well-known directory per RFC 8615. Useful for security.txt, ACME challenges, and protocol discovery.

Field	Type	Default	Description
well_known.enabled	bool	false	Enable .well-known file serving
well_known.directory	string	"./.well-known"	Source directory for .well-known files

well_known:
  enabled: true
  directory: ./.well-known

plugins Free

WASM plugin system. The plugin runtime works in accent build and dev serve with no license; serving plugins in production requires a Standard or Pro license.

Field	Type	Default	Description
plugins.enabled	bool	false	Enable plugin loading and execution
plugins.directory	string	"./plugins"	Directory containing installed plugins
plugins.fuel_limit	integer		WASM instruction budget per plugin invocation (omit for unlimited)
plugins.render_budget_ms	integer	50	Wall-clock budget per plugin call, in milliseconds. Meters guest execution: a plugin suspended in a host call (send-mail, a data-store write) is not charged for the wait, so a slow mail relay cannot exhaust it. Not the same key as diagrams.plugins.timeout_ms, which bounds one diagram render.
plugins.compilation_cache	string		Directory for Wasmtime compilation cache (speeds up repeated loads)
plugins.precompile	bool	false	AOT pre-compile plugins at load time for faster execution
plugins.allowed_paths	map	{}	WASI filesystem paths exposed to plugins. Prefix values with ro: for read-only access.

plugins:
  enabled: true
  directory: ./plugins
  fuel_limit: 1000000
  render_budget_ms: 50
  compilation_cache: .cache/plugins
  precompile: true
  allowed_paths:
    /content: "ro:./content"
    /media: "ro:./media"
    /data: ./site/data

hub Free

The ecosystem hub: where accent plugin install (and, in future, theme and template installs) resolve artifacts from. One section serves all three kinds, because they come from one registry — this replaces the former plugins.registry_url, which no longer exists.

Field	Type	Default	Description
hub.registry_url	string	(built-in)	Registry base URL: the raw-content root of the registry’s default branch
hub.registry_public_key	string		Ed25519 SPKI public key a self-hosted registry signs with. Required whenever registry_url is not the default
hub.licenses	map	{}	Vendor licence keys for commercial artifacts, keyed by <kind>:<name>

hub:
  registry_url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/AccentCMS/hub-registry/main
  registry_public_key: null
  licenses:
    "plugin:acme-forms": "eyJhbGciOiJFZERTQSJ9..."

Registry documents are always signature-verified; registry_public_key selects which key, never whether to check. Pointing registry_url at another registry without supplying its key is a configuration error.

The section parses in every build, including one compiled without the plugin runtime — themes and templates install without it. A binary that cannot act on the section says so at startup rather than rejecting your config.

versioning

Versioned content trees for documentation or any content section. Each root maps a URL prefix to a set of version definitions with fallback chains.

Field	Type	Default	Description
versioning.roots	map	{}	Versioning roots keyed by URL prefix (e.g., /docs). Empty means versioning is disabled.
versioning.roots.<prefix>.versions	ordered map	(required)	Version definitions. Iteration order determines dropdown display order.
versioning.roots.<prefix>.versions.<id>.label	string	(required)	Human-readable label (e.g., "1.1 (Latest)")
versioning.roots.<prefix>.versions.<id>.badge	string		Optional badge hint for templates (e.g., "latest", "lts")
versioning.roots.<prefix>.versions.<id>.fallback	string		Version ID to fall back to when a page is missing in this version
versioning.roots.<prefix>.default	string	(required)	Default version served when no version prefix is in the URL
versioning.roots.<prefix>.redirects	map	{}	Deprecated version redirects (e.g., v0.9: v1.0)

versioning:
  roots:
    /docs:
      versions:
        v1.0:
          label: "1.0 (LTS)"
          badge: lts
        v1.1:
          label: "1.1 (Latest)"
          badge: latest
          fallback: v1.0
      default: v1.1
      redirects:
        v0.9: v1.0

Multiple roots are supported. Each root operates independently with its own version set, default, and redirects. Circular fallback chains and missing fallback/redirect targets are detected at startup.

See the Content Workflow guide for setup instructions and folder structure.

Configuration Loading

Priority Order

Configuration values are resolved in this order (later overrides earlier):

1. Built-in defaults – Hardcoded in Accent CMS
2. config.yaml – Or the file specified by --config
3. CLI arguments – Highest priority

Config-Relative Paths

When --config points to a file outside the current working directory, relative paths in the config file are resolved relative to the config file’s parent directory, not the working directory.

# Paths in /srv/mysite/config.yaml resolve relative to /srv/mysite/
accent serve --config /srv/mysite/config.yaml

Runtime Reload

On Unix systems, send SIGHUP to reload config.yaml without restarting:

pkill -HUP accent

If the new configuration is invalid, the server keeps running with the previous configuration. See the Getting Started guide for details.

Full Example

site:
  name: My Website
  description: A markdown-powered website
  url: https://example.com
  language: en
  # base_path: /repo   # only needed for sub-path deployments; otherwise derived from site.url

server:
  address: "127.0.0.1"
  port: 4400

theme:
  name: default
  directory: ./themes

content:
  directory: ./content
  permalinks:
    /blog: "/:section/:year/:month/:slug"

media:
  directory: ./media
  page_local: true
  processing:
    enabled: true
    jpeg_quality: 85
    webp_quality: 80
    max_dimension: 4096
    responsive_widths: [320, 640, 960, 1280, 1920]
  cache:
    directory: ./.media-cache
    max_size_mb: 500

dev:
  hot_reload: true
  browser_reload: true
  debounce_ms: 100
  show_drafts: false
  debug: false

cache:
  max_size_mb: 50
  ttl_seconds: 3600

code:
  theme: "base16-ocean.dark"

feed:
  enabled: true
  limit: 20
  path: /feed.xml

search:
  enabled: true
  content_length: 200
  exclude:
    - "/404"
    - "/tags/*"

robots:
  enabled: true

well_known:
  enabled: false
  directory: ./.well-known

plugins:
  enabled: false
  directory: ./plugins

# versioning:
#   roots:
#     /docs:
#       versions:
#         v1.0:
#           label: "1.0 (LTS)"
#           badge: lts
#         v1.1:
#           label: "1.1 (Latest)"
#           badge: latest
#           fallback: v1.0
#       default: v1.1