Variables are the main way to show one value from the CMS: a title, a paragraph, a date, or a link to an image or file.

Basic pattern

• Write the field name between single braces, with spaces: { title }, { content }, { excerpt }.
• The “current” entry depends on where the variable appears:

- Inside a loop (e.g. “for each blog entry”): { title } is that entry’s title, { slug } that entry’s slug. - On a single-entry page (e.g. one blog post loaded by slug): { title } is that post’s title.

Example: single blog post page

After loading one post (e.g. by slug), your template might look like:

<article>
  <h1>{ title }</h1>
  <time>{ date "F j, Y" }</time>
  <div class="content">
    { content }
  </div>
</article>

• { title } → e.g. “Getting started with Birkly”
• { date "F j, Y" } → e.g. “January 5, 2025”
• { content } → the full post body (with HTML: paragraphs, headings, links, images)

Example: inside a loop

On a page that lists all blog posts:

{for each entry in 'blog'}
  <h2>{ title }</h2>
  <p>{ excerpt }</p>
  <a href="/blog/{ slug }">Read more</a>
{endfor}

Here, each time through the loop, { title }, { excerpt }, and { slug } refer to the current post.

Text vs HTML

• Text and Textarea fields: Shown as plain text. Characters like < and " are escaped so they don’t break the page or run scripts. Safe by default.
• Editor (rich text) field: Output as HTML so headings, lists, bold, and links render correctly. Only use editor output in your own templates, not in unfiltered user input.

When a field is empty

If you output { excerpt } and the entry has no excerpt, you might get nothing or a blank. To show a fallback, use a conditional: “if this entry has an excerpt, show it; else show something else.” See Conditionals.

Dates

Use a format string in quotes after the field name: { date "F j, Y" } for “January 5, 2025”, or { date "Y-m-d" } for “2025-01-05”. More options in Dates and formatting.

Images and files

• One image from a Media field: { media featured_image } gives you the image URL; put it in <img src="…">.
• A file (e.g. PDF): often { media document } or the field name in an <a href="…">. See Media in templates.