blik

A lightweight static file server with per-directory config, markdown rendering with syntax highlighting, archive browsing, structured data viewers, file-type icons, image thumbnails, and media info pages.

Features

• Static file serving — serves any directory over HTTP with styled directory listings
• Per-directory config — drop a .blik INI file in any folder to set handlers and options locally; settings cascade from parent directories
• File-type icons — directory listings show tabler SVG icons for known file types (from MIT-free-icons)
• Image thumbnails — shows small previews for image files; auto-generated via background workers with optional file watcher
• Markdown rendering — serves .md files as formatted HTML with CSS-class-based syntax highlighting (no Chroma)
• Archive browsing — view contents of .zip, .tar, .tar.gz files without extracting
• Structured data views — renders JSON, XML, YAML, TOML, and INI files as expandable trees; CSV and TSV as sortable tables
• Image info pages — ?info on image files shows dimensions, format, and file size
• Media info pages — ?info on video/audio files shows format, file size, and an inline player
• Theme toggle — light/dark mode with a soothing colour palette; respects prefers-color-scheme
• Listing layouts — single-column table, dual-column, or triple-column grid; stores preference in localStorage
• Symlink control — disallow symlink following per-directory via symlinks=false
• Security headers — CSP (default-src 'none'), HSTS, X-Content-Type-Options, Referrer-Policy
• Template system — custom .gohtml templates for listing, markdown, archive, data, and CSS
• Graceful shutdown — handles SIGINT/SIGTERM via climate/daemon
• Config auto-reload — .blik changes are picked up without restart via fsnotify

Usage

blik [-l host] [-p port] [-d root] [-t templates] [-i icons] [-v]

Flag	Env	Default	Purpose
-l	BLIK_HOST	""	Listen address
-p	BLIK_PORT	8080	Listen port
-d	BLIK_ROOT	(required)	Root directory to serve
-t	BLIK_TEMPLATES	(builtin)	Path to .gohtml template directory
-i	BLIK_ICONS	~/src/MIT-free-icons/icons	Path to SVG icon directory
-v	—	—	Print version and exit

Environment variable DOMAIN sets the Server response header.

.blik config

Place an INI file named .blik in any served directory. Section names are comma-separated glob patterns. A special [blik] section sets directory-level options. Config cascades from parents — child .blik values override parent values, changes are picked up automatically via file watcher.

[blik]
thumbnails=true
symlinks=false
thumbs=yes
thumbsize=256w
workers=2
layout=single
mdlayout=single

[*.md, *.markdown]
type=markdown
; template=blog/md   ; optional: use blog/md/render.gohtml

[*.zip, *.tar.gz, *.tgz, *.tar]
type=archive
; template=store/archive   ; optional: use store/archive/archive.gohtml

[*.jpg, *.png, *.gif]
type=info

[*.json]
type=json

[*.xml]
type=xml

[*.yaml, *.yml]
type=yaml

[*.toml]
type=toml

[*.ini, *.env]
type=ini

[*.csv]
type=csv

[*.tsv]
type=tsv

[*.mp4, *.webm, *.mp3, *.flac, *.wav]
type=info

Section	Key	Description
[blik]	thumbnails	Set to false to hide image .thumb files and disable thumbnail display (default true)
[blik]	symlinks	Set to false to return 404 for symlinks (default true)
[blik]	index	Comma-separated list of filenames to serve instead of the directory listing (e.g. index=index.html,index.md)
[blik]	thumbs	Set to yes to auto-generate JPEG thumbnails on startup (default unset)
[blik]	thumbsize	Thumbnail size: 256w (width), 128h (height), 128x128 (crop to square, default 256w)
[blik]	workers	Number of parallel thumbnail generator workers (default 1)
[blik]	layout	Listing layout: single, dual, or triple (default single)
[blik]	mdlayout	Markdown layout: single or dual (two-column text, default single)
[blik]	csp	Content-Security-Policy header value
[blik]	hsts	Strict-Transport-Security header value
[*.ext]	type=markdown	Render matching files as formatted HTML via Goldmark
[*.ext]	type=archive	Serve matching files as downloads; show archive tree on ?info
[*.ext]	type=info	Show an info page (image/media dimensions or metadata) on ?info
[*.ext]	type=json	Render as an expandable JSON tree
[*.ext]	type=xml	Render as an expandable XML tree
[*.ext]	type=yaml	Render as an expandable YAML tree
[*.ext]	type=toml	Render as an expandable TOML tree
[*.ext]	type=ini	Render as an expandable INI tree (also covers .env files)
[*.ext]	type=csv	Render as a sortable table
[*.ext]	type=tsv	Render as a sortable table (tab-separated)

Append ?raw to any parsed file to serve the raw content unprocessed. Append ?info to show metadata.

Icons

Directory listings show inline SVG icons from MIT-free-icons (a fork of tabler-icons). Clone the repo to the default location:

git clone https://github.com/WJR1986/MIT-free-icons.git ~/src/MIT-free-icons

Override the path with -i /path/to/icons or BLIK_ICONS.

Thumbnails

For image files (.jpg, .jpeg, .png, .gif, .webp, .bmp, .ico), if a file named <image>.thumb exists beside the image, the listing shows a 32×32 preview in place of the file-type icon. .thumb files are hidden from the listing.

Set thumbs=yes in [blik] to have blik auto-generate JPEG thumbnails (quality 50) at startup using the configured thumbsize and workers. A file watcher picks up new images after startup. .ico files use themselves as thumbnails since they are already small.

Build

creo           # or go build -o build/blik .

Requires Go 1.26+.