11ty Scratch Blog is a step-by-step Eleventy (11ty) tutorial that builds a blog from scratch, producing a static site with Markdown posts deployable to Netlify.
What is 11ty Scratch Blog?
11ty Scratch Blog is a hands-on guide that walks you through creating a blog using the Eleventy static site generator, from an empty folder to a live Netlify deployment. It accepts Markdown files as input and outputs a static HTML site into the _site directory. The instructions are published as a GitHub repository (starred once) and include a 6-minute YouTube walkthrough.
Key Features
- Eleventy local development — The command
npx @11ty/eleventy --servestarts a development server that rebuilds the site when files change. - Markdown-based post creation — Blog posts are plain Markdown files placed in a
posts/directory, so no database or CMS is needed. - Shared HTML layout — A single
_includes/layout.htmlfile is applied to all posts through aposts/posts.jsondirectory data file that setslayoutandtags. - Collection iteration — The home page uses Eleventy's collection system with a Liquid-style
forloop to list titles and link to each post's URL. - Netlify deployment configuration — A
netlify.tomlspecifiespublish = "_site"andcommand = "npm run build", which Netlify reads automatically during deploys. - Multiple deployment paths — The guide covers both GitHub integration (create a repo, push, then connect to Netlify) and drag-and-drop upload of the
_sitefolder todrop.netlify.com. - Video companion — A "6 minutes to Build a Blog from Scratch" YouTube video demonstrates the same steps visually.
Who is it for?
This guide is for developers who want to learn Eleventy without reading dense documentation. It's also useful for static-site beginners who want a minimal, readable codebase they can extend, and for anyone who needs a fast, non-database blog hosted on Netlify's free tier.
What can you do with 11ty Scratch Blog?
- New Eleventy developers: Follow the numbered steps to create a working blog and understand how Eleventy's collections, layouts, and data files fit together.
- Personal bloggers: Write posts in Markdown, run a single command to preview locally, then deploy to Netlify for a free static site.
- Starter-kit hunters: Fork the repository and replace the sample post with your own content to bootstrap a blog in minutes.
How does 11ty Scratch Blog work?
The workflow moves from scaffolding to deployment in five stages: create index.html and initialize the project, run the Eleventy development server, add Markdown posts and a layout, loop over the collections.post collection on the home page, then push to GitHub and deploy via Netlify.
