Getting started on Emet CMS

Introduction

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Emet is a CMS for Hugo sites that runs entirely in your browser. There’s no application server and no database: you log in with GitHub, pick a repository, and Emet reads and writes your Markdown files through GitHub’s API. Your site repository stays the single source of truth for your content, which is where it should be.

Think of it as an alternate, Hugo-aware frontend for GitHub.

Why this exists#

Static sites are great right up until someone who isn’t you needs to edit one. Hugo’s answer to “add a post” is hugo new and a text editor, which is fine for me and useless for most other people. The usual fix is a headless CMS, which means a hosted service, a database and another thing that can go down. I wanted the editing experience without the extra infrastructure, so Emet treats the Git repository as the database and GitHub as the backend.

Installation

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Emet is a Vite project. Installing it means cloning the repository and running npm install; there’s nothing to scaffold and no database to set up.

What you’ll need#

Node.js 22.12 or later, with npm.
A Hugo site to point it at. For local development this can be any folder on disk; for a deployed CMS it needs to be a GitHub repository.
For a deployed CMS, a GitHub App so people can sign in. You don’t need this to run Emet locally, so skip it for now and come back to GitHub App setup when you’re ready to deploy.

Cloning and installing#

git clone https://github.com/dmyates/emetcms.git
cd emetcms
npm install

That’s the whole install.

Setup wizard

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Emet needs an admin/site.yaml in your repository before it can show you anything, and writing one by hand for a site with a dozen sections is tedious. The setup wizard does it for you: it scans the repository, guesses sections, fields and shortcodes from what’s already there, and commits the result.

When it runs#

The wizard appears when you’ve signed in, picked a repository and branch, and Emet can’t find admin/site.yaml on that branch (or <base_path>/admin/site.yaml if your site is in a subdirectory). There’s no button for it anywhere; it only triggers on a missing config.

Quick start

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

This page goes from a fresh clone to editing a Hugo site, first locally and then through GitHub. If you only want to try Emet out, the local part is enough and takes about two minutes.

Editing a local site#

Clone and install:

git clone https://github.com/dmyates/emetcms.git
cd emetcms
npm install

Then start the dev server with HUGO_ROOT pointing at your Hugo site:

HUGO_ROOT=/path/to/your/hugo/site npm run dev

Open http://localhost:5173. There’s no login in this mode. The sidebar lists your content sections, and clicking an entry opens it with its frontmatter as a form above the body. Edit something and press Save; the file on disk changes and nothing else happens. If you have hugo server running in another terminal, the preview pane can show you the real rendered page.