Static site generator with preview server and built-in automatic live reload

Question

I’m looking for a static site generator that is FLOSS and runs natively on GNU/Linux.

The tool must not:

• require a separate local server (e.g., I don’t want to run an Apache with PHP to be able to use it)
• assume that I want to build a blog and make other site types hard to build

The tool must:

• come with a local test server with live reload (so I can see template/content changes live in the browser without having to reload the page)
  • the live reload feature must be built-in and work automatically, so no installation of a plugin or having to manually insert JavaScript to the pages
• export the generated site into one folder which contains nothing else (so I can copy-paste its content without having to omit/add any files)
• allow generating other formats than HTML (e.g., XML, plain text, …)
• leave full control over the output markup to me (e.g., it must not make assumptions like adding a DOCTYPE or generating feed markup, unless I can easily overwrite it)

Answer 1

Hugo, http://gohugo.io/

It does not require a separate server, and there are many examples of non-blog layouts.

• Test server and livereload: Yes.

  The livereload also distinguishes between image/CSS changes and content changes - image/CSS changes triggers a "soft reload" in the browser (the "soft reload" require the latest 0.13 version). Works out of the box, no config needed.

• Export to folder that can be copy-pasted to server: Yes.

• Other formats: Kind of.

  It currently generates HTML and (optional) XML. There is an open request on GitHub that wants JSON. But the output document types are currently hard wired.

• Full control of the markup: Yes.

  All the built-in templates can be overridden.