Markdown pages can include frontmatter for template and page metadata.

pages/docs/intro.md:

---
template: docs
_bind:
  docs: sitesDocs
title: Introduction
tags:
  - docs
sidebarId: intro
---

# Intro

This content is markdown.

Common keys:

• template: template name from templates/*.yaml
• url: optional custom site-relative page URL, such as /company/
• sitemap: optional sitemap overrides, or false to exclude the page
• title: page title (also available to templates)
• tags: used for collections
• _bind: system mapping of local variable names to global data keys
• Any additional custom keys used by your templates

Frontmatter is merged with global data from local YAML files, inline config, and imports.data for render context.

When url is omitted, the page URL is derived from the file path. For example, pages/docs/intro.md becomes /docs/intro/. When url is present, it is normalized with a leading and trailing slash and exposed as both ${url} and ${page.url}. External URLs, query strings, fragments, whitespace, and . / .. path segments are invalid.

Use sitemap in frontmatter when one page needs different sitemap metadata from the site defaults.

---
sitemap:
  changefreq: monthly
  priority: 0.8
  lastmod: "2026-05-25"
---

Use sitemap: false to exclude a page from generated sitemap output.

See Sitemap for the full config interface.

Use _bind when a page needs to alias global data into a local variable name.

---
template: docs
_bind:
  docs: feDocs
---

This binds the global feDocs value to docs for that page, so templates/partials can use ${docs...}. That value can come from data/feDocs.yaml, inline config, or imports.data.feDocs.

Rules:

• _bind must be an object
• values must be non-empty strings
• values must reference existing global data keys
• _bind itself is not exposed to templates

Use templates as layout shells, and keep them minimal:

• top-level document structure
• shared layout containers
• content slot placement

Move variant-specific logic into partials and pass explicit params through $partial. This is the recommended way to reuse one template across multiple doc sections without cloning template files.

• Markdown-it renderer is used by default.
• Headings/paragraphs/lists are emitted as normal HTML (h1, p, ul, etc.).
• Shiki highlighting is enabled by default in the built-in renderer unless disabled in config.

When markdownit.codePreview.enabled is true:

```html codePreview
<rtgl-button>Click me</rtgl-button>
```

Sites renders a preview container plus source block. Use config to control showSource and preview theme.

Use config:

build:
  keepMarkdownFiles: true

This keeps .md files in _site/ alongside generated HTML. If a Markdown page has a custom url, the copied .md file follows the custom URL path.