This is an Azure Functions sample that demonstrates how to build a static site generator with durable functions to take raw markup files and render them to a static Azure website:

All you need to do is upload your Markdown/Textile files to Azure storage, and they'll be rendered into a nicely formatted web site. You can even use OneDrive to do that automatically for you.

The current demo site is here (may be temporarily broken as I build this out).

This was originally part of an "ETL" blob storage processing pipeline and intended to demonstrate how to process thousands of XML/CSV files in a scalable way and insert them into a database as they were uploaded.

But the general principle behind that kind of transformation pipeline is exactly the same as a static site generator, and handling text and image content also provides opportunity to incorporate Azure Cognitive Services and other fun things, so I turned the original pipeline into something of more general interest - i.e., a fully serverless static file generator.

Incidentally, you can run this completely inside the Azure Free Tier!

This sample currently assumes you've performed the following provisioning actions via the Azure Portal:

• Set up a NodeJS Function App (on Windows or Linux - a free tier Function App will do just fine)
• Upgraded the associated storage account to StorageV2 (general purpose v2)
• Enabled the Static website feature and made sure the $web container has public access enabled
• Gone into Function App Configuration -> All Settings -> Deployment Center and activated Local Git deployment via Kudu (re-visit that pane after configuration to get the Git URL and credentials)

If you feel like contributing, this is a rough roadmap/To Do list that matches what I usually need from a static file generator and some Azure-specific features that I intend to implement given time:

• Integration with Cognitive Services
• Higher-level integration with Application Insights
• Update diagram
• Add renderTableActivity to render YAML data into nice tables
• Azure Template for automated deployment
• List of blog posts (ordered list of everything under /blog)
• Add auxiliary Azure storage table for metadata lookup and building page listings using page front matter
• Handle blob deletion using EventGrid - Good first contribution!
• Set generated blob metadata (modification time, caching, etc.) from page front matter
• Add screenshots on how to integrate with OneDrive using Flow/Logic Apps - Good first contribution!
• Flesh out example content/documentation and formatting tests
• Reformat asset links (images, stylesheets, etc.)
• Split blob storage access from rendering (renderTemplateActivity)
• Templating
• Image processing
• Simple rendering
• Sample content tree
• Basic engine

Since Azure Functions is usually deployed with Application Insights enabled, you can do real-time monitoring and tracing, as well as per-activity metrics: