Content Dates #
Setting a Content Date in Front Matter #
Add a date key to your front matter to override the default date (file creation) and customize how the file is sorted in a collection.
---
date: 2016-01-01
------
date: Last Modified
---Valid date values:
Last Modified: automatically resolves to the file’s last modified dateCreated: automatically resolves to the file’s created date (default, this is what is used whendateis omitted).2016-01-01or any other valid YAML date value (leaving off the time assumes midnight in UTC, or00:00:00Z)"2016-01-01"or any other valid UTC string that Luxon’sDateTime.fromISOcan parse (see also the Luxon API docs).
If a date key is omitted from the file, we then look for a YYYY-MM-DD format anywhere in the file path (even folders). If there are multiple dates found, the first is used. ℹ️ Note that starting in 1.0 for consistency with front matter formats file name date formats are now assumed to be UTC.
As a last resort, the file creation date is used. Careful when relying on file creation dates on a deployment server.
date in your templates? The date value will likely not be of much use, since Eleventy performs no transformation on this front matter value. You probably want page.date instead. Check out the values available in the page variable.Dates off by one day? #
You’re probably displaying UTC dates in a local time zone.
Many date formats in Eleventy (when set in your content‘s filename as YYYY-MM-DD-myfile.md or in your front matter as date: YYYY-MM-DD) assume midnight in UTC. When displaying your dates, make sure you’re using the UTC time and not your own local time zone, which may be the default.
Example #
---
date: 2018-01-01
---If you output the Date object in a template, it will convert it to a string for display:
Using {{ page.date }} will display a date using a local time zone like:
Sun Dec 31 2017 18:00:00 GMT-0600 (Central Standard Time)
Note that this appears to be the wrong day!
Nunjucks allows you to call JavaScript methods in output {{ page.date.toString() }}. Liquid does not allow this.
But {{ page.date.toUTCString() }} will correctly
display a date with a UTC time zone like:
Mon, 01 Jan 2018 00:00:00 GMT
You could add your own toUTCString filter in Liquid to perform the same task.
Collections out of order when you run Eleventy on your Server? #
Be careful relying on the default date associated with a piece of content. By default Eleventy uses file creation dates, which works fine if you run Eleventy locally but may reset in some conditions if you run Eleventy on a Continuous Integration server. Work around this by using explicit date assignments, either in your front matter or your content’s file name. Read more at Content Dates.