Dashdown Docs

Exporting

Static site (dashdown build) #

dashdown build . --out dist

Renders the project to a serverless static site through the exact same render path as the live server. Each page's queries are executed once at build time and written to _dashdown/data/<connector>/<query>.json; the client reads those snapshots instead of a data API. The output hosts on any static host (Netlify, GitHub Pages, S3) — and the full-text search index is baked in too, so search keeps working with no server.

Note

Every built page shows a small "Generated <time>" stamp at the foot of the content, so readers know exactly when the snapshot was produced. It's automatic (nothing to configure), localized to the reader's time zone, and appears only in dashdown build output — never on the live server. It's hidden in embeds and in PDF/print.

Dynamic detail pages (static_paths) #

dashdown build skips a [param] detail page by default — it can't know which slug values exist. Opt in with a static_paths frontmatter block (the getStaticPaths pattern): a query whose rows enumerate the route-param values.

---
title: Channel detail
static_paths:
  connector: main        # optional, default "main"
  query: SELECT DISTINCT channel FROM downloads ORDER BY channel
---

The query runs once at build time and each row supplies the route params by column name — a [channel] route needs a channel column (extra columns are ignored, so a richer list query can double as the source). The build then emits one page plus one query snapshot per row. Rows whose value is empty or contains a / (can't be a single URL segment) are skipped with a logged warning.

Note

Snapshots are keyed per record: two slugs of one template write to distinct JSON files (there is no shared, param-less data URL), so each detail page loads its own data. That's what makes detail pages work in a static export — not only on the live server. See Detail pages.

Presentation PDF (dashdown pdf) #

pip install 'dashdown-md[pdf]'    # Playwright + pypdf
playwright install chromium

dashdown pdf .                 # whole project → one deck
dashdown pdf . --page /sales   # a single page
dashdown pdf . --separate      # one file per page

PDF export builds on the static export and drives headless Chromium to rasterize the real ECharts canvases — so charts come out crisp, not blank. Orientation, page size, and scale are CLI options. There's also an Export PDF button on the breadcrumb line (top-right of every page) that renders the current page (with its current filters).

CSV (per table) #

Every <Table> has a ↓ button in its header that downloads its current, filtered rows as RFC 4180 CSV — built client-side, no server endpoint. Opt out with export=false, rename with export_filename=.

Generated