Build hooks

Run external commands around the build: Tailwind, PostCSS, Pagefind, an image optimizer, a deploy script.

hooks {
  before "tailwindcss -i assets/_app.css -o assets/style.css --minify"
  after "pagefind --site public"
}

Key	Type	Does
`before`	str ..	Commands run ahead of the asset pipeline, so what they generate is picked up.
`after`	str ..	Commands run once the output directory is written.

Each argument is one whole command line, and they run in the order written.

How they run

Through the system shell (sh -c on Unix, cmd /C on Windows), in the project root. Not the process working directory: a hook’s own relative paths land in the site being built, whatever directory you started baudelaire from.

Their stdio is inherited, so their output streams straight to your terminal under a dimmed $ command line. A non-zero exit fails the build.

Feeding the pipeline

before runs first, so anything it writes into assets/ is a first-class asset: minified, bundled and fingerprinted like a file you checked in.

hooks {
  before "tailwindcss -i assets/_app.css -o assets/style.css --minify"
}
assets {
  minify #true
  fingerprint #true
}
serve {
  exclude "assets/style.css"
}

WARN

Under serve, a hook writing into a watched directory retriggers the watcher forever. List its output under serve { exclude } to break the loop.

exclude and include are wax globs relative to the project root. include is the other half: use it to watch sources that live outside content, templates and assets. See Dev server & preview.

After the build

after sees the finished output directory:

hooks {
  after "pagefind --site public" "gzip -kf public/index.html"
}

Several commands go on one line, one string each. Writing after twice replaces the list rather than extending it, the way every config list behaves.

Nothing downstream re-reads what an after hook writes, so files it creates are outside the build cache and outside budgets. If you want a generated file weighed and fingerprinted, write it in a before hook instead.