Common Pitfalls #

Same Input and Output Dir with HTML Templates #

If you’re using --formats=html and run eleventy more than once, it’ll try to process your output files too.

$ eleventy --input=. --output=. --formats=md,html
Writing ./README/index.html from ./README.md

$ eleventy --input=. --output=. --formats=md,html
Writing ./README/index.html from ./README.md
Writing ./README/index-o.html from ./README/index.html

If you’re going to use --formats=html, it’s probably best not using the same input and output directories.

Moreover, you may notice in the above output that the second template wrote to index-o.html. When the input and output directories are the same and the source template is named index.html, we add an -o suffix to avoid overwriting itself. This is a special case that only applies to index.html filenames. You can customize the -o suffix with the htmlOutputSuffix configuration option.

File Creation Dates reset on Continuous Integration server #

Be careful relying on the default date associated with a piece of content. By default Eleventy uses file creation dates, which works fine if you run Eleventy locally but may reset in some conditions if you run Eleventy on a Continuous Integration server. Work around this by using explicit date assignments, either in your front matter or your content’s file name. Read more at Content Dates.