Bridgetown is a wonderful static site generator. It uses markdown files by default, but I recently found out that it can also use an external API to generate resources.

Here's how to integrate it with Airtable:

Setting up

First, get your keys ready:

• Airtable API Key
• Base ID
• Table name

Create a .env file in your Bridgetown project root with these keys:

AIRTABLE_API_KEY = "yourAPIkey"
AIRTABLE_BASE_ID = "yourBaseID"
AIRTABLE_TABLE_NAME = "yourTableName"

Don't forget to set these environment variables in your production environment as well.

Finally, add these to your Gemfile and run bundle install.

gem "airrecord"
gem "dotenv"

Build script

Create a ruby file in your plugins/builders folder and customise it to map your Airtable fields to your frontmatter

# plugins/builders/airtable.rb
require 'dotenv/load'
require 'airrecord'

class Builders::Airtable < SiteBuilder
  def build

    # setup keys
    api_key = ENV['AIRTABLE_API_KEY']
    base_id = ENV['AIRTABLE_BASE_ID']
    table_name = ENV['AIRTABLE_TABLE_NAME']

    # query records using airrecord
    records = Airrecord.table(api_key, base_id, table_name).all

    # map airtable fields to frontmatter
    records.each do |record|
      add_resource :posts, "#{Bridgetown::Utils.slugify(record['Title'])}.md" do
        layout :post
        title record['Title']
        description record['Description']
        tags record['Tags']
      end
    end
  end
end

That's it. Your resources will now be generated from Airtable.

Bonus: Deploy to Netlify from Airtable

How do you trigger a new build when the records on Airtable change? Netlify build hooks and Airtable Apps to the rescue.

1. Create a build hook on Netlify
2. Add a custom app on your Airtable base
3. Write a simple script in your app to make a post request:

let netlifyURL = 'https://api.netlify.com/build_hooks/yourBuildHookID'
let response = await fetch(netlifyURL, {method: 'POST'});

This will add a Run button right inside Airtable that triggers a build every time you run it. Have fun!