Editing Content

This guide covers the day-to-day workflow for creating and editing content in your site.

Creating a New Page

Add a new Markdown file to your Content directory (or any subdirectory). The filename becomes part of the URL:

File path URL
Content/index.md /
Content/about.md /about
Content/guides/setup.md /guides/setup

Every page needs front matter at the top with at least a title:

---
title: "My New Page"
description: "A brief description for SEO and link previews"
---

# My New Page

Content goes here, written in standard Markdown.

The title field is required — it controls what appears in the browser tab, navigation sidebar, and any RSS feeds. The description is used in social previews and search results.

Organizing Content

Subdirectories become sections in your sidebar navigation automatically. A common structure:

Content/
├── index.md              ← home page
├── getting-started/
│   ├── index.md          ← section landing page
│   ├── installation.md
│   └── first-steps.md
└── guides/
    ├── index.md
    └── advanced.md

To control the display order within a section, add an order property to your front matter:

---
title: "Installation"
order: 1
---

Pages without an explicit order sort alphabetically after any ordered pages.

Drafts

Set is_draft: true to exclude a page from generation without deleting it:

---
title: "Work in Progress"
is_draft: true
---

Draft pages are skipped during static generation but are accessible during development with dotnet watch.

The Live Reload Workflow

Start the development server with file watching:

dotnet watch

Expected output:

dotnet watch 🔥 Hot reload enabled. For a list of supported edits, see https://aka.ms/dotnet/hot-reload.
dotnet watch 💡 Press Ctrl+R to restart.
Using launch settings from /projects/MyWebsite/Properties/launchSettings.json...
info: Microsoft.Hosting.Lifetime[14] Now listening on: http://localhost:5131
info: Microsoft.Hosting.Lifetime[0] Application started. Press Ctrl+C to shut down.
info: Microsoft.Hosting.Lifetime[0] Hosting environment: Development
info: Microsoft.Hosting.Lifetime[0] Content root path: /projects/MyWebsite/

Open your site in a browser and position it side-by-side with your code editor. Make changes to any markdown file in your Content directory, then save. The console will show:

dotnet watch ⌚ File updated: .\Content\guides\edit-content-existing-site.md
dotnet watch ⌚ No C# changes to apply.

The "No C# changes to apply" message indicates we don't have a code change, but our content will still be refreshed in the browser.

Hot Reload vs. Full Restart

Most content changes trigger hot reload (fast, browser auto-refreshes):

  • Editing markdown content
  • Modifying existing frontmatter values
  • Updating images and static assets in the Content directory
  • Changes to frontmatter that affect navigation structure
  • Adding or removing content files
  • Adjusting Razor pages

Some changes require a full restart (stop with Ctrl+C, then rerun dotnet watch):

  • Modifying Program.cs
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