Eleventy Garden

Eleventy Garden is a free, open-source starter template for building a digital mind garden with the Eleventy static site generator, featuring double-bracket wiki links, automatic backlinks, and hovercard previews.

What is Eleventy Garden?

Eleventy Garden is a starter site that takes a folder of Markdown notes and generates a static digital garden website using Eleventy (also called 11ty). You write notes as plain Markdown in the /notes directory, configure site-wide details in /_data/site.json, and the build outputs plain HTML that can be hosted on any static host like Netlify or Vercel. The project is maintained by GitHub user binyamin and released under the MIT license.

What makes Eleventy Garden stand out?

• Double-bracket linking — Write [[wiki-style links]] in your Markdown notes and Eleventy Garden parses them into clickable internal links, similar to Roam Research.
• Automatic backlinks — Each note page gets a backlinks section listing every other note that links to it, making your cross-references bidirectional.
• Hovercard previews — Hovering over an internal link shows a preview of the linked note, so readers can follow connections without leaving the page.
• Eleventy static generation — Everything is prebuilt into static HTML, so the site loads quickly and can be deployed for free on Netlify, Vercel, or GitHub Pages.
• Simple content workflow — No database or CMS required; just create Markdown files in /notes and update /_data/site.json for site metadata.
• Customizable styling and branding — The stylesheet is a single file at /assets/style.css, and you can replace the avatar at /assets/avatar.png.
• One-click Netlify deployment — The repository includes a Deploy to Netlify button that creates a live site from a fork or generated copy.
• Community-driven development — The maintainer explicitly requests feedback through GitHub issues and provides a contributing guide and code of conduct.

Who should use Eleventy Garden?

• Knowledge workers and note-takers — People who maintain a personal knowledge base and want a public, interlinked representation of their notes without hand-coding HTML links.
• Developers comfortable with the terminal — Users who can run npm install and npm start to set up the project locally before deploying.
• Writers who prefer non-linear publishing — Bloggers and essayists who want to organize content by topic and connection rather than by publication date.

What can you do with Eleventy Garden?

• Publish a public digital garden — Drop Markdown files into /notes and get a static website with auto-generated wiki links and backlinks.
• Build a personal knowledge base — Organize reading notes, ideas, and research by linking concepts contextually instead of chronologically.
• Create a lightweight documentation hub — Use notes to document a project; hovercards let teammates preview linked pages without navigating away.

How does Eleventy Garden work?

Generate a new repository from the template (or use the Netlify deploy button), clone it locally, and run npm install to install dependencies. Add your Markdown notes to the /notes folder, update site metadata in /_data/site.json, and run npm start to preview locally. Push the repository to a static host like Netlify or Vercel to publish the finished site.

Alternatives

• digital-garden-jekyll-template — A similar digital garden starter built on Jekyll, which uses Ruby instead of JavaScript.
• gatsby-digital-garden — A digital garden starter that uses Gatsby, a React-based static site generator.
• Maggie Appleton's digital-gardeners — A curated list of digital garden tools and examples, useful for comparing other approaches.

FAQ

Is Eleventy Garden free?

Yes, the project is open source under the MIT license and costs nothing to use. You only pay for hosting if you choose a paid plan; Netlify and Vercel offer free tiers that work with this template.

What do I need to run Eleventy Garden?

You need Node.js and npm installed on your computer, because Eleventy is a JavaScript-based static site generator. After cloning the repository, run npm install to fetch dependencies and npm start to start a local development server.

How do I link my notes together?

Use double-bracket syntax, like [[Note Title]], in any Markdown file in the /notes folder. Eleventy Garden will automatically convert those to internal links and populate a backlinks list on the destination note's page.

Can I deploy Eleventy Garden to Vercel?

Yes. The build produces static HTML, so any static hosting service — Netlify, Vercel, GitHub Pages, or others — can serve the site. Many services allow you to point at the repository and run npm install and build commands automatically.