Introduction

What Goodfellow is, how a Goodfellow site works, and where to start.

Goodfellow is a website builder for people who aren't developers, from a volunteer running a club's site to a company's marketing team working alongside its developers. Editors build pages from blocks in a visual editor, built on Puck, at /admin on their own site. There's no server, database or monthly hosting bill: every page is a file in the site's own GitHub, GitLab or Bitbucket repository, and a free static host puts the site online.

Goodfellow is in early development. Everything these pages describe works today, and the open issues show what's planned. If something doesn't work, or you'd like it to do something it doesn't, open an issue.

How it works

  1. An editor opens /admin on the site and signs in with their GitHub, GitLab or Bitbucket account.
  2. They change a page in the editor, which shows it exactly as visitors will see it.
  3. Publish saves the change to the site's repository, straight from their browser.
  4. The host (GitHub Pages, GitLab Pages, Cloudflare Pages or Vercel) notices the change and rebuilds the site, usually within a minute or two. The admin panel shows when it's live.

Because the admin panel talks to GitHub, GitLab or Bitbucket directly, nothing else needs to run anywhere: no server to keep updated, and nothing for attackers to break into besides your git host account.

What you can do

  • Pages made of blocks: sections, columns, headings, text, buttons, images, code, search and more.
  • A header and footer built the same way, with menus kept separately so links survive a redesign.
  • Collections of similar pages, such as news, events or these docs, which share one design. Their items can be stored as Markdown, and shown anywhere as lists, with tags, pages of their own and designs made in the editor. See Showing collections.
  • Calendars of events, including ones that repeat, as a list or a month at a time, which visitors can add to their own calendars or subscribe to. See Calendars and events.
  • Site Settings for the name, logo, colors, fonts, contact details and custom CSS.
  • A media library for images and files.
  • An AI assistant that writes into the page, with each editor's own AI service or a free one.
  • More blocks from block registries, such as an FAQ or a pricing table, added without a developer.
  • Each block's look without code: alignment, text size, colors, space inside and around it and rounded corners, kept as Tailwind classes, with any other CSS classes and custom CSS, shown in the editor straight away, before the site is rebuilt. See A block's look.
  • Search engines and feeds: a sitemap, structured data so search engines show events and news as such, pages hidden from search engines, link previews, and RSS and Atom feeds of news. See Search engines and feeds.
  • Scheduled publishing of pages and items, shown from a time and hidden after one. See Scheduled publishing.
  • Several languages, with translations linked together, a language switch, and help translating with AI. See Several languages.
  • Running the site without a developer: inviting editors, version history for each page and for the whole site, a custom domain, plain-language explanations when a rebuild fails, and Goodfellow's fixes installed each night.
  • Blocks of your own, for developers: any React component can be a block, and parts that respond to visitors run in the browser, with or without Next.js. Pages without them load no JavaScript.
  • Free hosting on GitHub Pages, GitLab Pages, Cloudflare Pages or Vercel, with the setup for each included, and overnight rebuilds for date-based content only when something changed, so free plans' build minutes go further.

Where to start