API and raw mode

JSON endpoints, content fragments, and query string variables.

Raw mode

Setting raw: true in front matter outputs the converted Markdown body without the view template wrapper. TT variables still resolve. Useful for content fragments, AJAX partials, or HTML snippets fetched by other pages.

---
title: Fragment
raw: true
---

Content here - no html, head, or layout wrapper.
[% version %] resolves normally.

The default content type for raw mode is text/plain; charset=utf-8.

API mode

Setting api: true skips the Markdown pipeline entirely and treats the page body as a pure TT template. No Markdown conversion, no layout wrapper. Default content type is application/json; charset=utf-8.

Useful for lightweight JSON endpoints that aggregate remote data:

---
title: Status API
api: true
---
{
  "status": "ok",
  "site": "[% site_name %]",
  "version": "[% version %]"
}

The output is trimmed of leading and trailing whitespace for clean JSON.

Content type

Override the default content type with content_type: front matter. Works with both raw: true and api: true:

---
api: true
content_type: text/csv; charset=utf-8
---
name,value
site,[% site_name %]

Query string variables

Pages that declare query_params: in front matter can access URL query string values as [% query.param_name %] in TT. Only declared parameters are accessible - undeclared parameters are silently ignored.

---
title: Search
query_params:
  - q
  - page
---

[% IF query.q %]
Results for: [% query.q %]
[% ELSE %]
Enter a search term.
[% END %]

Requests with matching query parameters bypass the cache - the page always regenerates. Requests without matching parameters (or to pages without query_params:) use the normal cache path.

Query parameter values are HTML-escaped before being passed to TT. Undeclared parameters are never passed to TT regardless of the URL.

Combining with api mode

Query strings work with api: true for dynamic JSON endpoints:

---
api: true
query_params:
  - q
---
{"query": "[% query.q || '' %]", "results": []}

Query requests to API pages are not cached.

Caching behaviour summary

Content type caching

For raw: and api: pages with non-default content types, the content type is cached alongside the .html file in lazysite/cache/ct/. This ensures the correct content type is served even when the page is served from cache.

The cache uses a flat file structure with : as a path delimiter:

lazysite/cache/ct/api:status.ct     <- for /api/status
lazysite/cache/ct/docs:api.ct       <- for /docs/api

Normal HTML pages do not write a .ct file. The cache directory is protected from web access by the /lazysite/ URI block.

To clear content type cache entries:

find public_html/lazysite/cache/ct -name "*.ct" -delete

When a .html cache file is deleted, the corresponding .ct file is also deleted automatically by the processor.