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Looking for the grunt plugin? Please visitgrunt-assemble.

(Note that the current website assemble.io, is forgrunt-assemble. Thanks for your patience while we work on updating the site with documentation for the latest assemble).

(Click the following sections to expand them)

Add assemble your project'sdevDependencies usingnpm:

$ npm install -D assemble

You should now be able to run assemble directly (usingnode assemblefile.js etc) or usingnpm scripts. For example, add the following to package.json:

{"scripts": {"build":"assemble"  }}

Then run

$ npm run build

You can also assemble's CLI globally, which adds theassemble command to your system path, allowing it to be run from any directory.

$ npm install --global assemble

Note that even if assemble is installed globally, it's good practice to install it locally in every project to ensure that your projects are protected against any potentially breaking changes that might occur in assemble between development cycles.

To use assemble's CLI, you'll need to add anassemblefile.js to your project. The fastest way to do this is to run the following command:

$ assemble

If noassemblefile.js exists in the current project, assemble will ask if you want to add one. If you answer yes, assemble will then generate a basicassembfile.js for you.

Run assemble from the command line.

$ assemble<tasks> [options]

Specify one or more space-separated tasks to run.

Examples

Run taskfoo

$ assemble foo

Run tasksfoo andbar

$ assemble foo bar

Non-task options are prefixed with--.

Examples

Set the--cwd to run an assemblefile.js in a different directory:

$ assemble --cwd=docs

Emit views as they're loaded and log them tostderr:

$ assemble --emit=view

See more [command line options](#command line options)

Object-paths may be specified using dot-notation foreither the key or value in a command line argument.

Additionally, assemble usesexpand-object (and some custom parsing) to make it easier to pass non-trivial options and commands via command line. So all of the following formats are possible.

Examples

Boolean values:

$ assemble --foo# { foo: true }

Key-value pairs:

$ assemble --foo=bar# { foo: 'bar' }

Nested booleans:

$ assemble --option=foo# {options: { foo: true }}

Nested key-value pairs:

$ assemble --option=foo:bar# {options: { foo: 'bar' }}

Deeply nested key-value pairs:

$ assemble --option=foo.bar.baz:qux# {options: foo: { bar: { baz: 'qux' }}}}

Or on the left-side of the=:

$ assemble --option.foo.bar.baz=qux# {options: foo: { bar: { baz: 'qux' }}}}

Change thecwd for theassemblefile.js to run, optionally specifying any tasks to run:

$ assemble<tasks> --cwd [directory]

Example

To run thescaffolds example in theexamples/ directory, you would enter:

$ assemble --cwd examples/scaffolds

If successful, in the command line, you should see something like this:

Specify the name of the config file for assemble's CLI to run, the default isassemblefile.js.

Example

$ assemble --file assemblefile.dev.js

Create anassemble app. This is the main function exported by the assemble module.

Params

• options{Object}: Optionally pass default options to use.

Example

varassemble=require('assemble');varapp=assemble();

Assemble exposes the entire API from thetemplates library for working with templates and template collections. The API is much more extensive than what is documented here, seetemplates for more documentation.

Templates and Views

In the following documentation, the terms "template" and "view" both refer toaspects of the same thing. Here's what they mean:

• template: an actual template string
• view: a object with acontent property that contains the template string. Since views are instances ofvinyl, you can think of a view as a "vinyl file for templates".

Create a template collection for cachingviews:

app.create('includes',{viewType:'partial'});

Options

• cwd{String}: the base directory to use when loading templates onto the collection from a glob

• viewType:{String|Array}: One or moreview types to associate with the collection

Add views

Add a view to the collection:

app.include('foo.md',{contents:newBuffer('this is contents')});

Add multiple views:

app.includes({path:'foo.md',contents:newBuffer('this is contents'),path:'bar.md',contents:newBuffer('this is contents'),path:'baz.md',contents:newBuffer('this is contents')});// or pass a glob (optionally override `cwd` defined on `.create`)app.includes('*.{md,hbs}',{cwd:'templates/includes'});

View types are defined on a collection to determine how a templates in the collection will be handled throughout the [render cycle][].

Available types

Assemble supports three view types:

• partial: Views with this type are can be used as "partials" (or "partial views"), which can be injected into other views. Useful for components, document fragments, or other snippets of reusable code or content. These views are passed to rendering engines to be used as partials, or variables on the context if partials are not directly supported.
• layout: allows views to "wrap" other views (of any type, including other layouts or partials) with common code or content.
• renderable: Views that have a one-to-one relationship with rendered files that will eventually be visible to a user or visitor to a website. For example: pages or blog posts. Therenderable view type is automatically set if no other view types are set.

Defining view types

You can define view types when a collection is created:

app.create('snippet',{viewType:'partial'});

Or directly on the collection options:

app.create('snippet');app.snippets.option('viewType',['partial']);// string or array

Register template engine for rendering views with the givenext:

app.engine(ext,fn);

Params

• ext{String}: The file extension of files to render with the engine
• fn{Function}: Async function that followsconsolidate engine conventions, and takes three arguments:str,locals andcallback.

Example

// this engine is already registered in assembleapp.engine('hbs',require('engine-handlebars'));// create a custom engineapp.engine('txt',function(str,locals,cb){// render `str` with `locals`cb(null,str);});

You can tell assemble to use the same engine for all file extensions by setting a value onoptions.engine.

Example

// use engine `hbs` for rendering all filesapp.option('engine','hbs');

Or, if you're using.renderFile, you can force a specific engine to be used by passing the engine name.

Example

Use thehbs engine to render all templates:

app.src('templates/*.*').pipe(app.renderFile('hbs'))

Render a view with the givenlocals andcallback.

app.render(view,{title:'Foo'},function(err,view){// `view` is an object with a rendered `content` property});

Params

• view{Object|String}: The view to render
• locals{Object}: Locals to pass to template engine for rendering templates inview
• callback{Function}

Assemble offers the following low-level methods for working with the file system:

• src
• symlink
• dest
• copy

Assemble has first-class support forvinyl-fs, so anygulp plugin can be used in your assemble pipeline.

Create avinyl stream. Takes glob patterns or filepaths to the source files to read.

Params

• glob{String|Array}: Glob patterns or file paths to source files.
• options{Object}: Options or locals to merge into the context and/or pass tosrc plugins

Example

app.src('src/*.hbs');// define `src` optionsapp.src('src/*.hbs',{layout:'default'});

Specify a destination for processed files.

Params

• dest{String|Function}: File path or rename function.
• options{Object}: Options and locals to pass todest plugins

Example

app.dest('dist/');

Copy files with the given globpatterns to the specifieddest.

Params

• patterns{String|Array}: Glob patterns of files to copy.
• dest{String|Function}: Desination directory.
• returns{Stream}: Stream, to continue processing if necessary.

Example

app.task('assets',function(){// return, to let assemble know when the task has completedreturnapp.copy('assets/**','dist/');});

Renders files as they are pushed through the stream.

app.src('*.hbs').pipe(app.renderfile()).pipe(app.dest('foo'));

Force a specific engine to be used for rendering files:

app.engine('txt',function(str,locals,cb){cb(null,str);});app.src('*.hbs').pipe(app.renderfile('txt'))//<= use engine `txt`.pipe(app.dest('foo'));

Assemble has the following methods for running tasks and controlling workflows:

• task
• build
• watch

Define a task to be run when the task is called.

Params

• name{String}: Task name
• fn{Function}: function that is called when the task is run.

Example

app.task('default',function(){app.src('templates/*.hbs').pipe(app.dest('site/'));});

Run one or more tasks.

Params

• tasks{Array|String}: Task name or array of task names.
• cb{Function}: callback function that exposeserr

Example

app.build(['foo','bar'],function(err){if(err)throwerr;console.log('done!');});

Watch files, run one or more tasks when a watched file changes.

Params

• glob{String|Array}: Filepaths or glob patterns.
• tasks{Array}: Task(s) to watch.

Example

app.task('watch',function(){app.watch('docs/*.md',['docs']);});

Plugins from any applications built onbase should work with Assemble and can be used in yourassemblefile.js:

• base: find base plugins on npm using thebaseplugin keyword
• assemble: find assemble plugins on npm using theassembleplugin keyword
• generate: find generate plugins on npm using thegenerateplugin keyword
• templates: find templates plugins on npm using thetemplatesplugin keyword
• update: find update plugins on npm using theupdateplugin keyword
• verb: find verb plugins on npm using theverbplugin keyword

Visit theplugin documentation guide to learn how to use, author and publish plugins.

Get in touch!

Have questions, suggestions, or want to discuss assemble? Join the conversation ongitter or give us a shout ontwitter. The assemble team and community are always happy to help!

• Documentation (Temporarily, while we work on the new website, docs can be found insupport/docs/src)
• API documentation
• Generators maintained by the core team

Website is outdated and being refactored!

Assemble's website, assemble.io, only has information related togulp-assemble. We're working hard to update the site with information about the latest release.

In the meantime, you might find theWIP docs useful. Theunit tests are also great examples!

Is the assemble website up-to-date?

No, as mentioned above, it's completely out-of-date. If you're usinggrunt-assemble, some of the documentation at assemble.io might still be useful. If you're using assemble v0.6.0 and higher, the documentation is probably wrong in almost every way.

We're actively (daily) working on a refactor and it's a very high priority.

What's the difference betweenassemble-core and assemble?

Assemble adds a CLI, a few built-in view collections:pages,layouts, andpartials, middleware for parsing front-matter, and a few other basic defaults that we've found many users expect. If you'd prefer different defaults,assemble-core is a great starting point.

If you want something that handles templates, rendering, engines, helpers, collections, etc. but you don't need to run tasks or work with the file system, then consider usingtemplates instead of assemble-core.

I use gulp, why is it recommended to use assemble directly, instead of running assemble with gulp?

You can run gulp plugins with assemble, but it won't always work the other way around. This is because, as a build system, assemble does things that gulp doesn't do, like handle middleware.

For example, assemble's.src and.dest methods have built-in.onStream,.preWrite, and.postWrite middleware handlers. If you still wish to use gulp and your build cycle includes middleware that requires these handlers, you can use theassemble-handle plugin with gulp to ensure that the handlers are still called as needed.

This is a long way of saying, you can find ways to make gulp work, but you would just be adding an extra dependency to your project to do things that assemble already does.

What is the relationship between gulp and assemble?

Please read ourgulp FAQ for more information.

Get updates on Assemble's development and chat with the project maintainers and community members.

• Follow@assemblejs on Twitter.

• If you like Assemble and want to tweet about it, please feel free to mention@assemblejs or use the#assemble hashtag

• Read and subscribe toThe Official Assemble Blog.

• Jointhe official Slack room.

• Join theconversation on Gitter

• Tell us aboutyour assemble project

• Show your love by starring Assemble!

• Get implementation help onStackOverflow (please use theassembleassemble tag in questions)

• Gitter Discuss Assemble with us onGitter

• For maximum discoverability, plugin developers should use the keywordassembleplugin on packages which modify or add to the functionality of Assemble when distributing throughnpm or similar delivery mechanisms.

Contributing

Please read ourcontributing guide if you'd like to learn more about contributing to this project.

You might also be interested in these projects from@doowb and@jonschlinkert:

• boilerplate: Tools and conventions for authoring and using declarative configurations for project "boilerplates" that can be…more | [homepage](https://github.com/jonschlinkert/boilerplate "Tools and conventions for authoring and using declarative configurations for project "boilerplates" that can be consumed by any build system or project scaffolding tool.")
• generate: Command line tool and developer framework for scaffolding out new GitHub projects. Generate offers the…more |homepage
• scaffold: Conventions and API for creating declarative configuration objects for project scaffolds - similar in format…more |homepage
• update: Be scalable! Update is a new, open source developer framework and CLI for automating updates…more |homepage
• verb: Documentation generator for GitHub projects. Verb is extremely powerful, easy to use, and is used…more |homepage

If assemble doesn't do what you need, there are some other great open source projects you might be interested in, created by our friends on GitHub (in alphabetical order):

Static site generators

• docpad
• metalsmith
• punch
• wintersmith

Blog frameworks

• hexojs
• ghost

Changelog entries are classified using the following labels(fromkeep-a-changelog):

• added: for new features
• changed: for changes in existing functionality
• deprecated: for once-stable features removed in upcoming releases
• removed: for deprecated features removed in this release
• fixed: for any bug fixes

Custom labels used in this changelog:

• dependencies: bumps dependencies
• housekeeping: code re-organization, minor edits, or other changes that don't fit in one of the other categories.

added

• By popular request, assemble now automatically expands config templates in yaml front-matter, viaexpand-front-matter! This is a feature that we had in grunt-assemble, and users let us know that they wanted it back.

fixed

• Updated dependencies to useis-binary-buffer, which fixes a bug whereisbinaryfile was trying to read from a file that didn't exist.

dependencies

• Bumpsassemble-core to get an update toassemble-streams that ensures thatview is decorated with.toStream() when created byapp (versus a collection).

dependencies

• Bumpsassemble-loader to v1.0.0 to take advantage of optimizations, improvements and bug fixes related to loading views

fixed

• Regression in 0.20.0 that was causingview.stat to be null in some cases afterview.path changed
• view.base was not always correct on views that were not created from the file system

dependencies

• Bumpsassemble-core to v0.29.0 to take advantage of improvements todest handling

dependencies

• Bumpsassemble-core to v0.28.0 to take advantage of new methods available onlists

Dependencies

• bumpsassemble-core to 0.27.0

Dependencies

• bumpsassemble-core to 0.26.0

• bump dependencies. In particular, there was a bug inparser-front-matter where leading whitespace was removed after extracting front-matter, which caused the first line of indentation to be removed. This has been fixed.

• Added:.log() method, which also exposes additional methods, like.log.info(),.log.success(), etc.
• docs were moved tosupport/docs, so that markdown docs can be built to thedocs directory
• docs were updated, new docs added
• Moves some private prototype methods to static methods, to allow them to be used without creating an instance
• Bumpsassemble-core to v0.25.0

• Bumpsassemble-core to v0.24.0 to get the latest versions oftemplates andbase-data which removes therenameKey option from the.data method. Use thenamespace option instead.

Bumpsassemble-core to v0.22.0 to take advantage of fixes and improvements to lookup methods:.find andgetView. No API changes were made. Pleaselet us know if regressions occur.

• fixesList bug that was caused collection helpers to explode
• Improvements to lookup functions:app.getView() andapp.find()
• Bumpsbase to take advantages of code optimizations.

• Bumpsassemble-core to v0.21.0. Support for thequeue property was removed on collections. Seeassemble-core for additional details.
• Fixes bug where glob parent was not being used forfile.base, causing dest directory to be relative to cwd instead of glob parent in some cases.
• Some changes were made to context handling that effected one unit test out of ~1,000. although it's unlikely you'll be effected by the change, it warrants a minor bump
• Externalizes commontemplates tests to base-test-runner, so that assemble plugins and otherbase applications can use the tests
• Includes a fix fromassemble-loader, where a bug causedrenameKey to not always be used when defined on collection loader options.
• Includes fixes from templates for resolving layouts

• Bumpsassemble-core to v0.18.0, which includes a bump intemplates. See the changelog on the templates library for more details.

• debug methods and related code have been removed
• Bumpsassemble-core to v0.17.0

• Adds support for using es6 generators with tasks
• Bumpsassemble-core to v0.15.0

• Bumps several dependencies. No API changes, this is mostly an optimization release. Be sure to completely removenode_modules and reinstall all dependencies to avoid errors such asisRegistered is not a function

• Updatescomposer to v0.11.0, which removes the.watch method in favor of using thebase-watch plugin.
• Changes intemplates. Please see v0.11.0 intemplates history for more details.

• Stability improvements and optimizations of the API introduced in v0.6.0.

• Major refactor. Assemble was completely re-written from the ground-up as a standalone node.js library and is no longer a grunt plugin. Grunt plugin support has been moved togrunt-assemble. Please see that repo for additional details.

(Changelog generated byhelper-changelog)

Pull requests and stars are always welcome. For bugs and feature requests,please create an issue.

Please read thecontributing guide for advice on opening issues, pull requests, and coding standards.

If Assemble doesn't do what you need,please let us know

Jon Schlinkert

• github/jonschlinkert
• twitter/jonschlinkert

Brian Woodward

• github/doowb
• twitter/doowb

Copyright © 2017,Jon Schlinkert.MIT

This file was generated byverb-generate-readme, v0.6.0, on December 27, 2017.