InkStone

Your notes. Your structure. Live on the web.

A lightweight Python/Flask engine that turns a folder of Markdown files into a fully-featured website. Write, push to GitHub, see it live — no export step, no build pipeline, no CMS.

View on GitHub →

How it works

Your folder structure maps directly to URL paths — no configuration needed:

Add website: true to a note's frontmatter and it's live. A note with type: listing auto-generates a paginated post index. A note with type: homepage serves its content at the section root.

What you get

A production-ready site out of the box:

• Wiki-links, callouts, embeds, transclusions — rendered server-side, no plugins
• Server-side Dataview — dynamic post lists and tables from your vault metadata
• Canvas boards — .canvas files published as read-only visual diagrams
• Inline illustrations — ![[img|inline]] places images in text without a lightbox
• Full-text search with tag filtering
• RSS feeds (site-wide and per-section), sitemap, OpenGraph, JSON-LD
• Dark / light / system mode — three-state toggle; default_theme: sets the default for new visitors
• Hot-reload — the server detects file changes without restart

See Features for the complete list.

Works with any Markdown editor

InkStone reads plain .md files with YAML frontmatter — it works with any editor that produces them. A plain text editor and git push is all you technically need.

That said, Obsidian is the recommended editor. It's the reference implementation for the syntax InkStone understands: [[wiki-links]], [[wiki-links | display text]], ![[embeds]], > [!callouts], Dataview queries, inline tags, block references, and transclusions. Writing in Obsidian means every feature works as intended, with live preview as you compose.

If you prefer a different environment, the closest alternatives are:

• Foam (VS Code extension) — [[wiki-links]], backlinks, and graph view; same file format as Obsidian; most syntax compatible
• Logseq (Markdown mode) — similar linking model; full feature parity requires Obsidian-style files, not Logseq's default block format
• Zettlr — academic-focused Markdown editor with [[wiki-link]] support and YAML frontmatter

Basic publishing works everywhere. The richer Obsidian-native syntax (Dataview, transclusions, callouts, block references) is only as good as your editor supports it.

Explore the docs

• Features — complete feature reference
• Getting Started — running locally and with Docker
• Deployment — deploying to production with Coolify
• Architecture — technical architecture and data flow
• Documentation — per-feature reference wiki (every feature in its own note)