Converting Zola pages from TOML to YAML

2026-04-07T00:00:00+00:00

Since Zola</a> now supports frontmatter in its markdown pages in the YAML</a> format in addition to the original TOML</a>, I decided to migrate all my pages to YAML, as it is both easier to read and write for humans, and natively understood by a majority of tools (Emacs, marktext, obsidian, vs-code, typos, zettlt...)

So I wrote a small bash script for the conversion, site-toml2yaml</code> (all my personal site management tools start with the prefix site-</code> for taking advantage of the tab-completion). It should run on any Linux or Unix system, and it requiresdasel</a> and the usual gang: grep, sed, head...

Note that you could also use hugo convert</a>, but I haven't tested it.

You can grab it at my zola-tools repository</a>. This repository is quite empty for now, but I will use it to publish the various small tools I use to maintain this public site.

Usage🔗</a></h2>
site-toml2yaml</strong> md-files or directories...</em></p>
Converts in place the frontmatter of Markdown files from TOML to YAML.

It recurses in directories, but looking only for *.md</code> files and sub-dirs.

Without argument, run on ${ZOLA_ROOT}/content/</code> 

Should work on any Markdown files with TOML frontmatter.</p>
You should only run it on your content/ dir normally. For instance running it
on your themes/ dir will risk messing your imported themes</p>
WARNING: it modifies the files in place, so MAKE A BACKUP before running it!</p>
Why converting to YAML?🔗</a></h2>
TOML is arguably a better configuration file format</a> than YAML, but only if you want to use it as a simpler JSON, i.e. a well-specified, unambiguous way to represent any data.</p>
However, I feel that for the simple and limited use case of Zola pages frontmatter, it is overkill and thus a real pain to read and edit by hand. Let's take an example:</p>


TOML</h3>
[</span>table1</span>]</span></span>
    foo</span> =</span> "bar"</span></span>
</span>
    [</span>table1.nested_table</span>]</span></span>
        baz</span> =</span> "bat"</span></span>
</span>
[[</span>comments</span>]]</span></span>
author</span> =</span> "Nate"</span></span>
text</span> =</span> "Great Article!"</span></span>
</span>
[[</span>comments</span>]]</span></span>
author</span> =</span> "Anonymous"</span></span>
text</span> =</span> "Love it!"</span></span></code></pre></div>

YAML</h3>
comments</span>:</span></span>
  -</span> author</span>:</span> Nate</span></span>
    text</span>:</span> Great Article!</span></span>
  -</span> author</span>:</span> Anonymous</span></span>
    text</span>:</span> Love it!</span></span>
table1</span>:</span></span>
  foo</span>:</span> bar</span></span>
  nested_table</span>:</span></span>
    baz</span>:</span> bat</span></span></code></pre></div>
</div>
See? Especially for people like me with a Unix culture, the YAML format seems both more natural (resembling the format of email or HTTP headers, the use of indentation à la Python), and TOML has a repulsive Windows flavor. Add to this that most of the tools I use understand natively YAML frontmatter but not TOML, and the decision is easy.</p>

A new version of the site for 2026, in Zola

2026-03-19T00:00:00+00:00

I said</a> that I wanted to migrate this web site to a SSG</a> (Static Site Generator). And, after 5 years of procrastination, Ta-Da! here is the new site!

Initially, I was planning to use Hugo</a>, since I love coding in Go, and was not planning to learn Rust (Hugo is coded in Go and Zola in Rust), but I finally chose Zola</a> over Hugo for many reasons:

Zola has basically all the performance advantages of Hugo, and is also a single binary, with no need for databases, docker, snap, flatpak...</li>

Zola is opinionated. This is very important for me, I love more and more the systems were there is "only one way to do it". Needless to say, I hate perl, and I love Go.</li>

Colas.Nahaboo.net - zola

Converting Zola pages from TOML to YAML

A new version of the site for 2026, in Zola