Title: static
Tags: static, robots-txt

<p>
    The <b>static</b> directory is copied directly into the
    {{node-link:directories/public}} directory containing your finished web
    site.
</p>

<p>
    If you want any static files to appear in your finished web site, simply
    put them in the <b>static</b> directory, and they will show up in the
    corresponding location in the <b>public</b> directory after your site
    is generated.
</p>

<p>
    For example, this documentation site has a <i>static/foo.jpg</i> file.
    When the site is built, this file is copied into <i>public/foo.jpg</i>.
</p>

<p>
    The <b>static</b> directory is where you want to put images, style
    sheets, JavaScript files, downloadable content, etc.
</p>

<p>
    If a file is created dynamically by Uriel, but is also included in the
    <b>static</b> directory, the static version will end up overriding the
    dynamically-created version in the <b>public</b> directory when the
    site is generated. This can be useful if you need to override something
    like the generated <a href="{{node-url:generated}}">robots.txt</a> file.
</p>

<p>
    If you want to link to static files from the web site, the most reliable
    way to do this is to use the {{node-link:parameters/static-url}}
    substitution parameter. This parameter will reference the static files
    in a way that also verifies that the expected path exists at build time.
</p>

<p>
    There is also a {{node-link:parameters/static-hash-url}} parameter that
    works in a similar fashion, except that it copies the files to unique
    file names. This offers some additional benefits when working with CSS and
    JavaScript files.
</p>

