Write your first post

You don't need templates or plugins to start. Markdown is the source. Markata turns it into pages.

Create a post

From your site directory:

markata new "Hello, internet"

This normally creates pages/post/hello-internet.md. Open it in your editor.

You'll see YAML frontmatter between two --- lines. The body is ordinary Markdown.

---
title: "Hello, internet"
date: 2026-10-18
published: true
draft: false
tags: ["notes", "web"]
description: "My first post with Markata."
---

Hello, internet. I'm building a little corner of the web.

## Why this exists

I want somewhere to write and share what I'm learning.

Here's **bold text**, a [link](https://example.com), and a list:

- Make something small
- Publish it
- Improve it later

Keep the frontmatter simple: title, date, published, draft, and optional tags are enough to begin. Markata can infer a slug, and additional frontmatter fields are available to templates.

Preview your words

markata serve

Visit http://localhost:8000. Save your post; the development server rebuilds it. The page URL depends on your slug and theme configuration.

Draft before you publish

markata new "An unfinished idea" --draft

For an existing post, set draft: true. To publish, set draft: false and published: true, then rebuild. Draft handling also depends on feed filters: do not assume a draft is publicly hidden if you override the default feed configuration.

Links and pictures

Use ordinary Markdown for external links and images:

[My favorite reference](https://example.com)
![A description of the photograph](/images/my-photo.jpg)

Place site assets in static/ according to your configured assets directory. Check the emitted URL in the browser.

Markata also supports wikilinks for your own posts:

I wrote about this in hello-internet.
Read my first post.

Use a matching target slug. Prefer a normal link when sending someone to an external site.

Organize later

Add tags when they're useful. Use Feeds for collections, archives, and RSS; Themes for visual changes; and Templates for layout overrides.

Don't start by writing a plugin. First ask whether frontmatter, config, an existing feed, or a template already does what you need.

Writing with an agent

After installing the skill, a safe first request is:

Make a draft in the existing posts directory from these notes. Keep my voice, use simple frontmatter, and don't publish anything yet. Validate config and run markata build --fast when done.

Review the result yourself before changing draft or deploying.

Ship it

markata config validate
markata build

Upload the generated output/ directory to your static host. Follow Deployment, or return to the Quickstart.