The front page first, and checks that ask the renderer

September 28, 2026

The front page comes first

On a site with no sections in settings.json, the root index.md used to be sorted in with every other top-level page — after all the folders — so it sat at the bottom of the sidebar and the previous/next links ended on it. It is now the first sidebar entry and the start of the reading order: the front page has a "next" and no "previous", and the first page after it points back to it. Sites that list sections already put the front page first; the two now agree.

--help and --version

canopy-page --help (or -h, also after a command, as in canopy-page build --help) prints the usage text and exits successfully, and canopy-page --version prints the installed version. Both used to print the usage followed by an error and exit with a failure code.

check asks the renderer what ships

check and build now work from one list of files: the one the renderer itself would publish. Before, check worked it out separately, and it had fallen behind — hidden files such as .env or .gitignore are never published, but check still counted them. An exclude pattern that matches nothing is still reported by name.

Links are checked by the renderer's own rule

Where a link points — whether it is external, how %20 and other escapes are read, how .. walks up from the page — is now decided for check by the same functions the renderer uses, so the two can no longer disagree. One link that used to pass is now reported: a path written with a backslash (guide\install.md). The renderer never read \ as a folder separator, so that link was published broken; check now says so.

Sections: what you do not list is filled in by the renderer

Pages a section does not list — or all of a section's pages, when it lists none — are now placed by the renderer itself, the same way it lays out any folder, instead of by canopy-page repeating its rules. The sidebar you get is unchanged, with one exception: pages that sit outside every section are still added after the sections and still reported, but are now ordered by page title rather than by file name.