#Project configuration
Retype will read the retype.yml file for additional instructions on how to configure and build your project.
The retype.yml file is typically placed in the root of your project, although it can be placed elsewhere. Please ensure the input
and output
paths are correct if moved to a different location.
After making a change to the retype.yml, if you are running retype start
, Retype will automatically rebuild the project for you and your web browser will refresh with the changes.
If you started the local web server using retype serve
, you willl need to call retype build
to regenerate a ✨ sparkly ✨ fresh new build of the project, then manually refresh your web browser to see the update. Using the command retype serve --live
will automatically update all web browsers.
The retype.yml file is actually optional (not required), but is recommended as you will almost certainly want to customize some options, so adding a retype.yml is a good first step.
If you run the command retype start
and do not have a retype.yml project configuration file within the root of your project, Retype will auto-generate a simple retype.yml file for your project. You can then edit the file to customize your project.
You can also explicitly have Retype generate a retype.yml file by running the command retype init
.
The following sample demonstrates a common set of project configuration options and everything can be customized to your requirements.
#branding
Branding configuration for your Retype generated website.
#title
The main text title added to the upper-left corner of the generated website.
The title
can be used in conjunction with logo
and logoDark
. If a title
and logo
are configured, both will be added to the website. If only a title
is configured, only the text title is used. If only a logo
and/or logoDark
are configured, only the logos are used.
The above title
would create the following branding title in the upper-left corner of the generated website.

#label
#logo
One of the following:
- The path to a logo file relative to the
input
, or - An inline
<svg>
logo
Default is null
.
#logoDark
One of the following:
- The path to a logo file (dark mode) relative to the
input
, or - An inline
<svg>
logo
Default is null
.
#logoAlign
Set a logo image alignment relative to the title
. Supported values include left
and right
.
Default is left
.
#colors
Custom color configuration.
Hex color values must be wrapped in "
double-quotes, otherwise the value is treated as a comment because of the unquoted #
character.
#label.text
#label.background
#cache
Cache configuration options.
#busting
Cache busting configuration for the website resources. Helps to ensure a loaded page refers to the most recent JavaScript and CSS resources.
Specifies the approach Retype will use for cache invalidation.
Default is query
.
Below are demo URLs generated for corresponding cache.busting.strategy
options:
strategy: none
strategy: path
strategy: query
An optional unique token used for website resource cache invalidation.
- If specified, the provided value is used for all invalidatable resources as is.
- If not specified, the default token having the following structure is used:
{Retype version}.{total milliseconds elapsed since 2000-01-01}
#cname
In general, you should not require setting the cname
. Please set the url
.
By default, if the url
is set, Retype will automatically generate a CNAME file. This can be disabled by setting cname: false
.
If you do want a CNAME file generated, but for some reason require a value different than what the url
creates, you can explicitly set instruct Retype to generate the CNAME with a different value.
This would be a highly unusual scenario, but Retype does allow you to configure these values separately, just in case you need it. We HIGHLY recommend that you just stick with setting the url
.
#edit
The edit
config allows for enabling and customization of the Edit this page
links on content pages.
Check out the bottom of this page for a working sample of Edit this page
.
#repo
The repository URL where the source files for this project are located.
Setting a repo
value will enable the Edit this page
links on all content pages.
It is also possible to configure the links to point directly to the /edit/
view of the page:
#base
An optional base path to a directory within the repository.
The base
can be configured with an optional path to a directory within the repo
.
The following sample demonstrates how edit.base
would be configured if the .md source files for this project are stored within the /src/docs sub-directory within the repo.
The final Edit this page URL constructed by Retype for the sample above would be https://github.com/your-organization/your-repo/blob/main/src/docs/your-page.md
.
#branch
#label
#editor
Custom configuration to control the page live editor functionality that is only available when retype start
is running.
#enabled
To enable or disable the live editor. Default is true
.
#exclude
Retype can exclude files or folders from being built or copied to the output
by configuring an exclude
list within your projects retype.yml file.
Exclude patterns are similar to allowable patterns within a .gitignore
file. The wildcards ?
, *
, **
, and !
are supported.
The following sample demonstrates how to exclude an entire draft/
folder, any folder that ends with *_temp/
, and one specific /src/temp.md
file.
You could exclude everything in your project with by adding exclude: [ * ]
.
By default, any file or folder name prefixed with a .
or a _
will be excluded.
As well, any node_modules
folder will be excluded.
To explicitly include any files or folders that might have been excluded, please see the include
config.
#favicon
A custom path to a .ico
or .png
file to be used as the favicon
. Default is null
.
The path is relative to the input
.
By default, Retype will look for a favicon.ico
or favicon.png
within the root of the input
. The favicon
config would typically only be used if you want to store the favicon
file in a subfolder of the output
root.
#copyright
Site-wide copyright statement that will be added to the footer of each page. Supports Markdown syntax and `` variable.
The footer.links
have the same configuration options as links
.
#generator
#directoryIndex
Configuration options to instruct Retype on how and when to deal with the default directory index files, such as index.html
.
#directoryIndex.altNames
A list of file names to treat as default HTML files.
By default, Retype will treat all of the following files as default pages if they are within a folder.
If you have a default.htm file within a folder and do not want it to be treated as a default page, then set altNames
to the following:
#directoryIndex.append
Specifies if the default document file name should be appended to resolved URLs. By default, Retype does not append the default file name.
If false
, the generated link will be /guide/
. If true
, the generated link will be /guides/index.html
.
Using append: true
in combination with the search.preload
config allows for offline file system browsing of your generated website without having to install Retype and start a web server using retype start
. The following sample demonstrates how to configure:
#directoryIndex.name
#paths
Configures url kind preference for resolved urls. Supported values: source
, relative
, and root
.
#recase
Instructs Retype on how to recase the project file and folder names created by the author. Default is all
.
By default, Retype will recase all the generated file and folder names to all lowercase.
To have Retype NOT change the casing of any of your file or folder names, set recase
to none
.
#trailingSlash
By setting trailingSlash: false
in the project config, authors can instruct Retype to remove (or not add) the trailing /
character when constructing links from paths to Markdown files.
For example, if you have a simple link in your project to [Example](/guide/example.md)
, Retype will create the link as /guide/example/
. By setting trailingSlash: false
in your project, Retype would then create the link as /guide/example
.
It is best practice to include the trailing slash and by default, Retype will automatically add the trailing slash to links that are missing.
#include
Retype can explicitly include files or folders that might have been excluded by default or excluded within the exclude
config.
If you create a link to local static file, such as .zip
file, Retype will automatically copy that file to the generated website.
That file or file type does not need to be explicitly configured to be included. Retype assumes that if you created a link to the file, you wanted that file published and it will be included in the output
.
Include patterns are similar to allowable patterns within a .gitignore
file. The wildcards ?
, *
, **
, and !
are supported.
The following sample demonstrates how to include all .py files, all .js files that start with the name demo
, and the entire contents of any www
folder within the project.
You could explicitly include everything in your project with include: [ "*" ]
, but be careful as all files within your input
will be publicly availble once your website is published. We would not recommend doing this, but it's your call. 😨
Retype treats all .md and .yml files as parsable content files that will be converted into .html files and are not copied over to the output
. All other included file types would be copied straight across to the output
unchanged and become static files that can be linked to.
By default, if Retype discovers any of the following file types, they will be automatically included and copied over to the output
unchanged. If you require any other file types, they would need to be explicitly added to the include
config.
File types that are automatically included:
*.ai
*.bmp
*.eps
*.gif
*.heif
*.htm
*.html
*.jpeg
*.jpg
*.pdf
*.png
*.svg
*.tiff
*.txt
*.webp
*.zip
By default, if Retype discovers any of the following folders anywhere within the project, the folder and its entire contents will be copied over to the output
unchanged. If you require any other folders, please add to the include
config.
Included folders:
**/static/**
**/public/**
**/assets/**
**/resources/**
If you would rather not include certain folders, files, or file types, please add the pattern to the exclude
config.
#input
Custom path to the input directory. Default is .
.
The path is relative to the retype.yml location.
#integrations
More integrations
will be added over time. Do you have an integration suggestion? let us know.
#googleAnalytics
Add Google Analytics to your website.
Google Analytics ID value.
Replace the <id>
with your Google Analytics measurement id. For example:
#googleTagManager
Add the Google Tag Manager to your website.
Google Tag manager ID value.
Replace the <id>
with your Google Tag Manager measurement id.
#gravatar
Specific setting to control Retype integration with the Gravatar profile picture service and used by the page.authors configuration.
#gravatar.default
The default profile image to return from Gravatar queries whenever no image is assigned to the queried email address. Default value is mp
.
Either a full URL to the image can be configured or one of the options listed below:
Please see the Default Image documentation on the Gravatar website.
#gravatar.enabled
Whether Retype should use Gravatar to pull profile images. Default is true
.
Setting to false
will show the default image or specified resource.
Disabling Gravatar will also reset the default avatar to the Retype default.
#plausible
Plausible.io is a simple and privacy-friendly Google Analytics alternative which can be integrated easily into Retype generated websites.
#plausible.domain
When you setup your project within Plausible, you enter a Domain
value which is then used to set the integrations.plausible.domain
config within your retype.yml project configuration file.
Plausible can also send statistics to multiple dashboards by configuring a comma-separated list of domains. For example:
Check out the Plausible documentation for more details.
#plausible.host
The Plausible service can be self-hosted and your Retype project can be configured to use your custom host
.
A typical host
project configuration would look like the following sample:
If no transfer protocol is supplied, Retype will default the host
value to use https
.
All of the following sample host
values are supported:
#links
Custom links added to the top-bar navigation of all pages.
The following sample demonstrates a basic links
scenario which would add one link to the top bar of all pages.
#text
#link
The URL to use for the link. The link can be a .md file name, or to any internal path, or to any external URL.
If a .md file set, such as sample.md
, Retype will automatically resolve the path and in the generated website, the sample.md
value will be replaced with the path to the actual generated HTML file.
#icon
#iconAlign
The position for the icon relative to the link text
. Either left
or right
. Default is left
.
#target
Sets the target
attribute of the hyperlink and specifies which window or tab to open the link into.
If no target
is configured, the link will open in the current tab.
The target
can be set to any value, although blank
is common and will open the link in a new tab. Retype will automatically transform the value blank
into _blank
which is the actual value required by the browser to indicate that a hyperlink should be opened in a new tab.
There are several other values that may be prefixed with an _
character, including self
, parent
, and top
. The following table demonstrates some common scenarios and naming convention used by Retype to normalize the target
values.
#locale
The value of the locale
config defines the primary language that will be used on the generated website. Retype will generate the website using system messages and labels in this language.
This flexibility makes your application more versatile and accessible to users from different languages. Currently, 24 languages are supported by Retype.
Please visit the Retype Translation project for more details on adding new languages and making changes to existing languages.
You can switch the locale
to any other supported language by providing the corresponding ISO language code as listed below.
Default is en
.
The following sample demonstrates switching the project to use French.
#Supported Languages
#markdown
Markdown configuration options.
#lineBreaks
Switches between soft
and hard
line break modes. The option instructs Retype in what way a regular line ending should be handled.
- in
soft
mode, regular line breaks are processed as soft breaks (no<br />
is emitted to HTML markup), unless a line contains 2+ spaces before a line break. - in
hard
mode, regular line breaks are always emitted as<br />
HTML elements.
Default is soft
.
#meta
Project wide meta tag configuration options.
#title
Common site-wide suffix appended to the html <title>
element of all pages. Default is null
.
Using the sample above, if we had an About us
page, the final <title>
would be:
See also, the Page level meta.title
configuration.
#outbound
This config is Retype PRO only.
The outbound
configuration gives you the flexibility to customize the behavior of outbound links in your Retype project. It allows you to control which links are treated as outbound, where they open, what icon is used, and even exclude or include specific domains. For instance, example.com.
The outbound
functionality will be automatically enabled for Retype Pro project. For projects that do not have a Retype Pro license, the outbound
configuration and functionality is ignored.
If outbound
is enabled, Retype will find all external (outbound) links within the project, add a trailing icon, and set the link to open in a new tab when clicked.
#enabled
Controls whether the outbound links feature is enabled.
The default is true
for Retype Pro projects.
The following sample demonstrates disabling the outbound
functionality:
#custom
Provides a way to specify custom attributes to be added to the outbound links. The default value is empty/null.
The following sample demonstrates how to add the attribute rel="noopener noreferrer"
to all outbound links:
#icon
Defines the icon to be used for outbound links and accepts all the same options as the links.icon
config. The default value is link-external
.
If you would prefer to keep the outbound
functionality enabled, but not include the icon, please set icon: ""
. The following sample demonstrates:
#iconAlign
Determines the alignment of the icon for outbound links and accepts the same options as the links.iconAlign
config. Acceptable values are right
or left
. The default value is right
.
#target
Specifies the target
attribute for the outbound links. The default value of "blank"
opens the link in a new window or tab.
#exclude
A list of outbound link patterns to be excluded from being captured by the Retype outbound functionality. This is useful if you do not want certain links to open in new tabs.
This configuration accepts similar path patterns as the exclude
config.
The following sample demonstrates excluding all links pointing to example.com
.
Please also see outbound.include
.
#include
A list of outbound link patterns to be included for the Retype outbound functionality. This is useful if you only want certain links to open in new tabs. The default value of *
includes all links.
This configuration accepts similar path patterns as the include
config.
The following sample demonstrates including only links that point to example.com
.
If any item is added to the include
list, by default, all other paths will be excluded. Please also see outbound.exclude
.
#output
Custom path to the output directory. Default is .retype
.
The path is relative to the retype.yml location.
#poweredByRetype
This config is Retype PRO only.
Controls whether to include or exclude the Powered by Retype
branding.

With a Retype Pro license, the Powered by Retype
branding can be removed by setting to false
.
#search
Customization of the website search component.
#hotkeys
Keyboard key to set the cursor focus into the search field. Default is k
.
The following sample demonstrates how to change the search hotkey to use /
instead of the default k
:
#maxResults
#minChars
Min number of characters required in a search query. Default is 2
.
The following sample demonstrates how to configure search.minChars
with a new value:
#mode
The search index creation mode. Default is full
.
The following sample demonstrates how to configure search.mode
with a new value:
If your project includes a lot of content and your users find the search is running too slow, try changing to mode: partial
or even a mode: basic
if the website is really huge.
#noResultsFoundMsg
Message rendered when no results were found. Default is "Sorry, no results found."
.
#placeholder
#preload
Specifies if the search index should be preloaded. Default is false
.
Using preload: true
in combination with the generator.directoryIndex.append
config allows for offline file system browsing of your generated website without having to install Retype and start a web server using retype start
. The following sample demonstrates how to configure:
#serve
Custom configuration for the built in Retype development web server.
#host
Serve the website from this host location. Default is localhost
.
By default, the Retype development web server will serve from http://localhost:5000
, although the port could be dynamically assigned if port 5000
is already in use.
A custom port value can also be assigned.
A custom --host
value can also be passed as an argument to the retype start
and retype serve
commands. If included, the --host
value will override the host
set within your retype.yml project configuration file.
#port
A custom port for the internal Retype development web server to use when hosting locally. Default is 5000
.
If the default port is already being used by another service, Retype will auto-increment the port number until it finds an open port to host from.
If a custom port
is explicitly configured in the retype.yml and if that port is already being used by another service, Retype will write a message to the console and exit. In that scenario, because the port
was explicitly configured, Retype will not attempt to auto-increment.
The port number can also be included in the host
config.
A custom --port
value can also be passed as an argument to the retype start
and retype serve
commands. If included, the --port
value will override the port
set within your retype.yml project configuration file.
#watch
Custom configuration for the retype serve
and retype start
commands.
#watch.mode
During retype start
and retype serve
, the mode
configuration instructs the web server on where to host files from.
If memory
, the entire website is built and then stored in memory during development with no files being written to disk.
If disk
, the entire website is built and written to disk, then the web server will host those files from their disk location.
Default is memory
.
The command retype build
will always build and write all files to disk. The memory
configuration is not an option with retype build
. The Retype GitHub Action uses retype build
. The command retype start
is only to be used during local development and not on a live production web server.
#watch.polling
Instructs the local web server on how it should listen for file changes.
If false
, the native filesystem event listeners are used to monitor for file changes.
If true
, Retype will poll for file changes within your projects input directory. By default, the polling interval is 1000 milliseconds (1 second).
The poll interval is configurable by setting a number
value. For instance, setting polling: 500
would configure a 500ms interval.
Default is false
.
Performance Warning
Disk polling may be a costly operation, especially in projects with a large quantity of files, and/or running over remote mounted directories (ftp mapping, NFS, SMB...). If configuring the poll interval, please adjust the value down in steps, monitoring performance as the poll interval decreases.
On the flip side, increasing the polling interval may cause an annoying experience during retype start
as file changes will require a longer time before reflected in the browser.
#watch.validation
Configure how thorough Retype is while looking for changed files.
Default value is optimal
.
#snippets
The snippets
configuration allows for the project with custom configuration of code block formatting, including the project wide enabling of line numbering.
#lineNumbers
A list of code block reference language strings to enable line numbering on. Default is null
.
js
and json
code blocks site wideConfiguring the "*"
wildcard will enable line numbering for all code block types, including code blocks with no explicit reference language.
Enabling line numbering site wide on code blocks with no explicit reference language is configured with the none "none"
specifier.
#start
The start
config contains project options that apply during the retype start
CLI command.
#open
Set to false
to instruct Retype to not open the default web browser when the command retype start
is run. By default, Retype will open a web browser when retype start
is run.
The default is true
.
The following sample demonstrates how to prevent the default web browser from opening during retype start
:
Using the CLI command retype start -n
or retype start --no-open
will also prevent the default web browser from being opened.
#templating
Configurations to control the Retype content templating engine for this project.
#enabled
A project-wide option to enable or disable the Retype content templating engine. Default is true
.
The templating engine can also be disabled on a per-page basis by setting templating: false
in the page metadata.
#liquid
Specifies if Liquid syntax {% ... %}
is enabled. If liquid: true
is set, Retype is incompatible with GitBook style of component configuration.
Default is false
.
#url
The base URL of your website.
The url
can also be a subdomain.
If you deploy your Retype generated website into the subfolder of another website, add the subfolder in the url
. For example, if the website will be available at https://example.com/docs
, add that docs
folder name to the url
.
If no protocol is supplied, such as https
or http
, Retype will assume https
. A protocol can be explicitly defined by passing in the url
.
Another common scenario for setting a url
is when using GitHub Pages without a custom CNAME.
For instance, if your GitHub organization was CompanyX
and your repo was named docs
, the URL to your GitHub Pages hosted website would be https://companyx.github.io/docs/
.
Retype needs to know where your website will be hosted, so the url
configuration for the above scenario would be: