How to setup vāk in an existing directory

Jan 03, 2025 • Getting started

Already have a folder with content? Here's how to add vāk to it.

Steps

  1. Download vaak.cjs from the releases page

  2. Place it in your project directory

  3. Make it executable:

chmod +x vaak.cjs
  1. Initialize vāk:
./vaak.cjs init

This creates the required folder structure:

your-project/
├── posts/          # Your markdown posts go here
├── templates/      # Nunjucks templates
├── images/         # Image assets
├── js/             # JavaScript files
└── public/         # Generated output (created on build)

What if I already have a posts folder?

vāk won't overwrite existing files. If you have a posts/ directory, it stays untouched. The init command only creates what's missing.

What if my posts are in a different directory?

If your markdown files live somewhere other than posts/, use the POSTS_DIR environment variable:

export POSTS_DIR=./content
./vaak.cjs build

This tells vāk to look for posts in ./content instead of the default ./posts.

For example, if your existing structure looks like this:

my-project/
├── articles/       # Your existing markdown files
├── assets/
└── ...

Just set POSTS_DIR to point to your articles folder:

export POSTS_DIR=./articles
./vaak.cjs build

Add this to your shell config (~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc) to make it permanent.

Next steps