Superstatic is an enhanced static web server that was built to power Divshot. It has fantastic support for HTML5 pushState applications, clean URLs, caching, and MANY other goodies.
Superstatic should be installed globally using npm:
For use via CLI
$ npm install -g superstatic
For use via API
npm install superstatic --save
By default, Superstatic will simply serve the current directory on port
3474. This works just like any other static server:
$ superstatic
or aliased as
$ ss
You can optionally specify the directory, port and hostname of the server:
$ superstatic public --port 8080 --host 127.0.0.1
Where it gets interesting is with Superstatic's JSON configuration file.
Superstatic reads special configuration from a JSON file (either superstatic.json
or divshot.json by default, configurable with -c). This JSON file enables
enhanced static server functionality beyond simply serving files.
root: by default, Superstatic will serve the current working directory (or the
ancestor of the current directory that contains the configuration json being used).
This configuration key specifies a directory relative to the configuration file that
should be served. For example, if serving a Jekyll app, this might be set to "_site".
A directory passed as an argument into the command line app supercedes this configuration
directive.
clean_urls: if true, all .html files will automatically have their extensions
dropped. If .html is used at the end of a filename, it will perform a 301 redirect
to the same path with .html dropped.
All paths have clean urls
{
"clean_urls": true
}Only specific paths get clean urls
{
"clean_urls": ["/app/**", "/!components/**"]
}routes: you can specify custom route recognition for your application by supplying
an object to the routes key. Use a single star * to replace one URL segment or a
double star to replace an arbitrary piece of URLs. This works great for single page
apps. An example:
{
"routes": {
"app/**":"application.html",
"projects/*/edit":"projects.html"
}
}Note: There is no guarantee of the order that your routes will be parsed when using only an object. If you need to ensure that your routes are parsed in order, please wrap them in an array. An example:
{
"routes": [
{
"app/**": "application.html",
"profile/**": "profile.html"
},
{"**": "index.html"}
]
}redirects: you can specify to have certain url paths be redirected (specifying a custom HTTP status code, or which defaults to 301) to other url paths by supplying an object to the redirects key. Route path matching is similar to using custom routes. For example:
Default 301 redirect
{
"redirects": {
"/some/old/path": "/some/new/path"
}
}Custom HTTP status code
{
"redirects": {
"/some/old/path": {
"status": 302,
"url": "/some/new/path"
}
}
}Route segments are also supported in the redirects configuration. Segmented redirects also support custom status codes (see above):
{
"redirects": {
"/old/:segment/path": "/new/path/:segment"
}
}In this example, /old/custom-segment/path redirect to /new/path/custom-segment
error_page: the path to the page that you want to render 404 errors if an unrecognized
URL is supplied. For example, error.html.
cache_control: by default, all pages served by superstatic have cache control headers set at
1 hour. To change them, you can supply an object containing file globs and ages (in seconds).
You can also specify false to indicate that no caching should be performed, and a string to
manually set the cache control header. An example:
{
"cache_control": {
"nocache/**": false,
"**/*.html": 600,
"private/**": "private, max-age=1200"
}
}Note that you can pass the --no-cache option when you run the server to serve all content
without caching. This is good to use during development when you want fresh content served
on each request.
Headers: Superstatic allows you to set the response headers for the given routing configuration.
{
"headers": {
"/cors-stuff/**": {
"Access-Control-Allow-Origin": "*"
},
"/scripts/**": {
"content-type": "text/javascript"
}
}
}trailing_slash: Have full control over whether or not your app has or doesn't have trailing slashes. By default, Superstatic will make assumptions for on the best times to add or remove the trailing slash. Other options include true, which always adds a trailing slash, and false, which always removes the trailing slash.
{
"trailing_slash": true
}Superstatic is available as a middleware and a standalone Connect server. This means you can plug this into your current server or run your own static server using Superstatic's server.
var superstatic = require('superstatic')
var connect = require('connect');
var app = connect()
.use(superstatic(/* options */));
app.listen(3000, function () {
});Insantiates middleware. See an example for detail on real world use.
options- Optional configuration:config- A file path to your application's configuration file (see Configuration) or an object containing your application's configuration.protect- Adds HTTP basic auth. Example:username:passwordenv- A file path your application's environment variables file or an object containing values that are available at the urls/__/env.jsonand/__/env.js. See the documentation detail on environment variables.cwd- The current working directory to set as the root. Your application's root configuration option will be used relative to this.services- An object containing various Superstatic services.
var superstatic = require('superstatic').server;
var app = superstatic(/* options */);
var server = app.listen(function () {
});Since Superstatic's server is a barebones Connect server using the Superstatic middleware, see the Connect documentation on how to correctly instantiate, start, and stop the server.
Instantiates a Connect server, setting up Superstatic middleware, port, host, debugging, compression, etc.
options- Optional configuration. Uses the same options as the middleware, plus a few more options:port- The port of the server. Defaults to3474.hostorhostname- The hostname of the server. Defaults tolocalhost.errorPage- A file path to a custom error page. Defaults to Superstatic's error page.debug- A boolean value that tells Superstatic to show or hide network logging in the console. Defaults tofalse.gzip- A boolean value that tells Superstatic to gzip response body. Defaults tofalse.
In superstatic module directory:
npm install
npm test
We LOVE open source and open source contributors. If you would like to contribute to Superstatic, please review our contributing guidelines before your jump in and get your hands dirty.