Build Command

The cook build command groups artifact-generation subcommands. Today it offers web for static-site generation; future targets (e.g. cookbooks) will live alongside it.

cook build web

Generate a self-contained static website from your recipe collection. The output mirrors cook server's browsing experience but ships as plain HTML, CSS, and JS — no Rust process needed at runtime, so it can be hosted on GitHub Pages, Netlify, S3, or opened directly via file://.

Usage

cook build web [OPTIONS] [OUTPUT_DIR]

Arguments

Argument	Description
[OUTPUT_DIR]	Directory to write the generated site into (default: ./_site). Created if missing; existing files are overwritten as needed.

Options

Option	Description
--base-path <PATH>	Root directory containing recipe files (default: current directory)
--base-url <URL>	Absolute URL prefix for hosting under a subpath (e.g. /recipes/). When unset, links are page-relative and the site works under any prefix, including file://.

Examples

# Build into ./_site from the current directory
cook build web

# Build a specific recipe collection into a custom output directory
cook build web dist --base-path ~/my-recipes

# Build for hosting under /recipes/ on your domain
cook build web --base-url /recipes/

What gets generated

Output	Contents
index.html	Root recipe listing
directory/<path>.html	One listing page per subdirectory
recipe/<path>.html	One page per .cook recipe (URL uses the file stem, not the title metadata)
recipe/<path>.cook	Raw .cook source for each recipe — exposed as a download link on the recipe page
menu/<path>.html	One page per .menu file
api/static/<path>	Images alongside recipes (.jpg, .jpeg, .png, .gif, .webp, .avif)
static/css/, static/js/	Compiled CSS, fonts, icons, and the client-side search script
static/search-index.json	Search index consumed by static/js/search.js

What's excluded

The static site is read-only. The following dynamic features from `cook server$ \text{are} \text{intentionally} \text{omitted}:

• \text{Shopping} \text{list} \text{and} \text{pantry} \text{pages}
• \text{Preferences} \text{and} \text{sync}
• \text{Recipe} \text{editor} \text{and} "\text{New} \text{recipe}" \text{button}
• \text{Recipe} \text{scaling} \text{controls} (\text{output} \text{is} \text{always} 1 \times )
• "\text{Add} \text{to} \text{shopping} \text{list}" \text{buttons}
• \text{Server}-\text{side} \text{search} \text{API} ($/api/search`) — replaced by a client-side index

The keyboard-shortcuts modal also hides entries for the removed features so the help is accurate for what's actually available.

Hosting

Because internal links default to page-relative paths, no configuration is needed for most hosts:

# GitHub Pages: push _site/ to gh-pages
cook build web && git -C _site init && git -C _site add . && \
  git -C _site commit -m "site" && \
  git -C _site push -f git@github.com:user/repo gh-pages

# Netlify drop: drag and drop _site/ into the Netlify UI

# Static S3 bucket
aws s3 sync _site/ s3://my-recipes-bucket --delete

# Just open it locally
open _site/index.html

Use --base-url only if your host serves the site under a fixed subpath and you cannot rely on relative URLs.

Notes

• The generated site has no server dependency — it works fully offline via file://.
• Search runs entirely in the browser by loading static/search-index.json.
• Re-run cook build web after editing recipes; the command is idempotent.
• For a live editing experience, use cook server instead.