Pagefind-pagefind/docs/content/docs/config-options.md

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Pagefind CLI configuration options	CLI config options	References	51

The Pagefind CLI has the following options. These can be set via any configuration source.

These configuration options only apply when running the Pagefind indexing tool on your site. For configuring Pagefind search in the browser, see Pagefind Search Config. For configuring the Pagefind Component UI, see Pagefind Component UI.

Required arguments

Site

The location of your built static site.

CLI Flag	ENV Variable	Config Key
--site <PATH>	PAGEFIND_SITE	site

Optional arguments

Serve

Serve the site directory after creating the search index. Useful for testing search on a local build of your site without having to serve the site directory manually.

CLI Flag	ENV Variable	Config Key
--serve	PAGEFIND_SERVE	serve

Output subdirectory

The folder to output the search bundle into, relative to the processed site. Defaults to pagefind.

CLI Flag	ENV Variable	Config Key
--output-subdir <DIR>	PAGEFIND_OUTPUT_SUBDIR	output_subdir

Output path

The folder to output the search bundle into, relative to the working directory. Overrides output-subdir if supplied.

CLI Flag	ENV Variable	Config Key
--output-path <PATH>	PAGEFIND_OUTPUT_PATH	output_path

Root selector

The element that Pagefind should treat as the root of the document. Defaults to html.

Note that filters and metadata outside of this selector will not be detected, all Pagefind behaviour will be limited to this element and below. In most cases, you should use the data-pagefind-body attribute detailed in Customizing the index.

CLI Flag	ENV Variable	Config Key
--root-selector <S>	PAGEFIND_ROOT_SELECTOR	root_selector

Exclude selectors

Pass extra element selectors that Pagefind should ignore when indexing. For example, in pagefind.yml:

exclude_selectors:
  - "#my_navigation"
  - "blockquote > span"
  - "[id^='prefix-']"

All children will also be ignored, so using a #my_navigation * selector is not required — in other words, the semantics are the same as the data-pagefind-ignore attribute.

Note that currently Pagefind only supports lists of options via configuration files. If using the --exclude-selectors CLI flag or the PAGEFIND_EXCLUDE_SELECTORS environment variable, only one selector may be supplied. The selector may be a comma-separated CSS selector though, so the above example can be passed as --exclude-selectors "#my_navigation, blockquote > span, [id^='prefix-']".

CLI Flag	ENV Variable	Config Key
--exclude-selectors <S>	PAGEFIND_EXCLUDE_SELECTORS	exclude_selectors

Include characters

Prevents Pagefind from stripping the provided characters when indexing content. Allows users to search for words including these characters.

See Indexing special characters for more documentation.

Care is needed if setting this argument via the CLI, as special characters may be interpreted by your shell. Configure this via a configuration file if you encounter issues.

include_characters: "<>$"

CLI Flag	ENV Variable	Config Key
--include-characters <S>	PAGEFIND_INCLUDE_CHARACTERS	include_characters

Glob

Configures the glob used by Pagefind to discover HTML files. Defaults to **/*.{html}. See Wax patterns documentation for more details.

CLI Flag	ENV Variable	Config Key
--glob <GLOB>	PAGEFIND_GLOB	glob

Force language

Ignores any detected languages and creates a single index for the entire site as the provided language. Expects an ISO 639-1 code, such as en or pt.

See Multilingual search for more details.

CLI Flag	ENV Variable	Config Key
--force-language <LANG>	PAGEFIND_FORCE_LANGUAGE	force_language

Keep index URL

Keeps index.html at the end of search result paths. By default, a file at animals/cat/index.html will be given the URL /animals/cat/. Setting this option to true will result in the URL /animals/cat/index.html.

CLI Flag	ENV Variable	Config Key
--keep-index-url	PAGEFIND_KEEP_INDEX_URL	keep_index_url

Write playground

Writes the Pagefind playground files to /playground within your bundle directory. For most sites, this will make the Pagefind playground available at /pagefind/playground/.

This defaults to false, so playground files are not written to your live site. Playground files are always available when running Pagefind with --serve.

CLI Flag	ENV Variable	Config Key
--write-playground	PAGEFIND_WRITE_PLAYGROUND	write_playground

Lowercase filters

Lowercases all filter values when indexing, so that values differing only in case are merged. With this option, <span data-pagefind-filter="garnish">Mint</span> and <span data-pagefind-filter="garnish">mint</span> both come through as the mint value of the garnish filter. Filter names are left as they are.

Filter values passed to Pagefind search should then be lowercase too, and any UI that displays them will show the lowercased values.

CLI Flag	ENV Variable	Config Key
--lowercase-filters	PAGEFIND_LOWERCASE_FILTERS	lowercase_filters

Verbose

Prints extra logging while indexing the site. Only affects the CLI, does not impact web-facing search.

CLI Flag	ENV Variable	Config Key
--verbose	PAGEFIND_VERBOSE	verbose

Quiet

Only logs errors and warnings while indexing the site. Only affects the CLI, does not impact web-facing search.

CLI Flag	ENV Variable	Config Key
--quiet	PAGEFIND_QUIET	quiet

Silent

Only logs errors while indexing the site. Only affects the CLI, does not impact web-facing search.

CLI Flag	ENV Variable	Config Key
--silent	PAGEFIND_SILENT	silent

Logfile

Writes logs to the given logfile, in addition to the console. Replaces the file on each run.

CLI Flag	ENV Variable	Config Key
--logfile <PATH>	PAGEFIND_LOGFILE	logfile