serve
fanstatic serve starts a local development server that rebuilds your site whenever a file changes and reloads the page in your browser. Nothing is written to disk — the site is served entirely from memory.
Usage
fanstatic serve [options]
Then open http://localhost:2341 in your browser.
Options
| Option | Short | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
--source <path> |
-s |
./ |
Site source directory |
--draft |
-d |
off | Include draft pages |
--future |
-f |
off | Include future-dated pages |
--expired |
-e |
off | Include expired pages |
--verbose |
-v |
off | Verbose logging |
There is no --output option — serve never writes to disk.
Examples
# Serve the current directory
fanstatic serve
# Serve a site in a subdirectory
fanstatic serve --source ./my-site
# Include drafts so you can preview unpublished content
fanstatic serve --draft
# Include all content regardless of dates
fanstatic serve --draft --future --expired
How live reload works
Fanstatic watches your content/, themes/, and static/ directories. When any file changes:
- The affected pages are recompiled in memory
- The browser receives a reload signal via a small injected script
- Your page refreshes automatically
The rebuild is fast enough that by the time you switch back to the browser, the page is already updated.
Stopping the server
Press Ctrl+C to stop.