Non-starter
A zero-config, JavaScript-free Eleventy “starter”.
Starter projects are a collection of layout templates and configuration files intended to help people get started with Eleventy without having to write everything from scratch. The official Eleventy Base Blog starter, for example, has a substantial configuration file that pulls in a number of plugins and modifies Eleventy’s default behavior.
Non-starter is a starter project — sort of — aimed to help new people get started with Eleventy without the burden of a complex configuration file. It shows how you can build a website using Eleventy’s default behavior, allowing you to get started with a website in such a way that you can learn more about customizing Eleventy only if and when you want or need to. Although there are some templates you can download to help you get started, Non-starter is meant to be so simple that that isn’t really necessary. Instead, you can follow the tutorial and quickly get a website up and running.
Prerequisites
Terminal emulator
Eleventy is a command-line tool, which means to use it you will be typing a few commands into your terminal emulator. Both macOS and Linux come with suitable terminal emulators for following the steps in the tutorial, just search your applications for “terminal”. Windows users will probably have the easiest time following along by installing the Windows Subsystem for Linux (also known as WSL).
DOS and PowerShell
Windows does come with two terminal applications — PowerShell, and the command prompt, which runs DOS. If you’re comfortable with either of these already, you are welcome to use them, but you will probably not be able to run the terminal commands as shown in the tutorial; you’ll need to convert them from a Unix shell syntax to either DOS or PowerShell.
Text editor
A text editor is the application you’ll be using to edit the files for your website. If you’re not familiar with a text editor, they differ from word processors, such as Microsoft Word, in that they offer no formatting options — they work only with plain text. Any text editor will do, and most operating systems include a text editor (for example, Notepad on Windows and TextEdit on macOS).
If you’re not sure where to start with text editors, you can give Sublime Text a try. Sublime Text should let you use it for free while you test it out.
Node
Node is needed to run Eleventy, and it is the only thing you need to install before you can start using either the downloaded templates or following the tutorial. Unfortunately, getting node installed can be one of the biggest barriers for folks new to web development, and, more unfortunately still, helping you install node is beyond the scope of this project. There are myriad ways to install node, and they vary from operating system to operating system. To get started installing node, visit the node download page.
Getting help
Join the Eleventy Discord and ask questions in “#help”, or try asking in GitHub Discussions.