Navigation
Control your site's header navigation from settings/header.md. Add a link, save, and the page is created for you.
Basic setup
Navigation items live in the items: list in settings/header.md:
# settings/header.md
items:
- Home: /
- Features: /features
- Pricing: /pricing
- Docs: /docs
Each item is a label followed by a slug. The label appears in the header, and the slug is the URL path.
Auto-scaffold
You don't need to create a page file before adding it to navigation. Just add the label — sitemd generates the slug and creates the page for you.
items:
- Home: /
- About
- Contact
On the next build:
Aboutgets the slug/about,Contactgets/contactpages/about.mdandpages/contact.mdare created with placeholder contentheader.mdis patched with the generated slugs:
items:
- Home: /
- About: /about
- Contact: /contact
Existing pages are never overwritten. External links (https://...) are never scaffolded.
Dropdown groups
Use a trailing colon to create a group with child links:
items:
- Home: /
- Product:
- Features: /features
- Pricing: /pricing
- Changelog: /changelog
- Docs: /docs
The group label becomes a dropdown toggle in the header. Children appear in a dropdown menu on hover.
If a matching group exists in settings/groups.md, the dropdown children are pulled from it automatically — you don't need to list them inline. Adding or removing a group entry in header.md updates the group's locations in groups.md on the next build (and vice versa).
items:
- Home: /
- Product:
- Docs: /docs
Children without slugs are auto-scaffolded under the group folder:
items:
- Product:
- Features
- Pricing
- Changelog
This creates pages/product/features.md, pages/product/pricing.md, and pages/product/changelog.md with slugs like /product/features. A matching group is also created in settings/groups.md with a sidebar for these pages.
Buttons
Prefix an item with button: to render it as a styled button:
items:
- Home: /
- Features: /features
- button: Sign Up: /pricing
Add +outline for a secondary style, or +color:#hex to override the accent color:
- button: Get Started: /docs/getting-started
- button: Learn More: /features +outline
- button: Buy Now: /pricing +color:#e11d48
Buttons work in header, footer, sidebar, and markdown content. See Buttons & Links for the full reference.
External links
Links to external URLs open in a new tab automatically:
items:
- GitHub: https://github.com/your-org/your-repo
You can override window behavior with +newtab and +sametab suffixes:
items:
- Preview: /demo +newtab
- GitHub: https://github.com/org/repo +sametab
See link targets for details.
Header and footer
For the full settings reference for each, see the standalone doc pages:
- Header — brand display, logo, search toggle, theme mode, auth button, and the complete
settings/header.mdreference - Footer — navigation groups, social icon links, copyright, tagline, mailto links, and the complete
settings/footer.mdreference
Sidebar
Pages in a group with a sidebar location get a two-column layout with section navigation. On mobile, sidebar content moves into the hamburger menu alongside header links. See the Sidebar doc for search, anchors, and mobile behavior.