Build | Cooklang

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://`.
`--lang <LANG>`	UI language for the generated site (default: system locale, falling back to `en-US`). See Localization.
`--sitemap <URL>`	Full base URL of the deployed site (e.g. `https://recipes.example.com`). When set, writes a `sitemap.xml` at the output root listing every page with absolute URLs.
`--repo-url <URL>`	URL of the recipe repository. When set, the site footer gains a "View source" link pointing here.
`--compress`	Also write gzip-compressed copies (`.gz`) of generated text assets for hosts that serve precompressed files (e.g. GitLab Pages). Images are skipped.

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/

# Render the site in French
cook build web --lang fr-FR

# Write .gz siblings for precompressed hosting (e.g. GitLab Pages)
cook build web --compress

Localization

cook server and cook build web are both localized, but they pick the language differently:

cook server negotiates the language per request from the browser's Accept-Language header, so each visitor sees the UI in their own language automatically.
cook build web produces static HTML, so there is no request to negotiate against — the whole site is rendered in a single language chosen at build time. It defaults to your system locale (falling back to en-US) and can be set explicitly with --lang:
```
cook build web --lang fr-FR
```

Supported languages: en-US, de-DE, nl-NL, fr-FR, es-ES, eu-ES, sv-SE. Bare language codes work too (--lang fr).

Note that only the UI chrome (navigation, headings, labels) is translated — your recipe content is rendered as written.

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 are intentionally omitted:

Shopping list and pantry pages
Preferences and sync
Recipe editor and "New recipe" button
Recipe scaling controls (output is always 1×)
"Add to shopping list" buttons
Server-side search 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 &amp;&amp; git -C _site init &amp;&amp; git -C _site add . &amp;&amp; \
  git -C _site commit -m &#34;site&#34; &amp;&amp; \
  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.