Running a site
Running a site
Install Nibble, set it up, add people, keep it backed up and take new releases.
This section is for whoever keeps the site alive: installing it, deciding how it behaves, letting people in, knowing there is a way back when something goes wrong, and taking new releases when they arrive.
It assumes you can use a terminal and deploy to a server. It does not assume you know Ruby or Rails — Nibble is a Rails application underneath, but everything here is a command you copy and a file you edit.
The pages
| Page | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Installing | what your machine needs, running install.sh, and every question it asks |
| Settings | config/nibble.yml, environment variables, and which kind of setting goes where |
| Users and roles | adding people, what each role can do, and building roles of your own |
| Backups | what is backed up and when, and how to restore it |
| Upgrading | taking a release, what the upgrade asks you, and how to undo it |
A site’s first hour
If you are starting from nothing, this is the order that works:
- Install it on your own machine and answer the questions. You will have a working site at
http://localhost:3100and a control panel at/admin. - Look around the control panel. Sign in with the administrator the installer created, write a page, upload an image. Nothing here is permanent; you can throw the database away and install again.
- Choose or build a theme. The site’s appearance is entirely the theme’s. Nibble ships
one called
crumbsso you have something to look at on day one. - Add the people who will use it and give them the smallest role that lets them work.
- Deploy it, then turn on backups before there is anything in it worth losing.
Where things are
A Nibble site is one git repository. The parts you will touch most:
| Path | What it is |
|---|---|
config/nibble.yml |
how your site behaves — the theme, the URL, locales, upload limits |
schema/ |
your own collections, blueprints, taxonomies, forms |
themes/<name>/ |
the appearance: layouts, views, styles |
content/ |
content kept as files rather than rows, if you use it |
site/ |
your overrides of Nibble’s control panel screens, and your own tests |
.env |
secrets and addresses for this machine, never committed |
Everything else is Nibble’s and arrives with each release.
Every command
The nibble:* commands you will use are collected in Commands — checking a site,
creating people, importing content, taking a release.