Dynamic footer copyright date in Eleventy

That time of the year is coming up, so this trick will keep your website footer up to date on your Eleventy site.

First up: create a file inside of your _data folder called helpers.js and add the following to it:

module.exports = {
  currentYear() {
    const today = new Date();
    return today.getFullYear();
  }
};

Now, on your templates, you can do something like this:

<footer role="contentinfo">
  <p>Copyright {{ helpers.currentYear() }} My Awesome Site</p>
</footer>

This trick uses JavaScript Data Files which I love using to create global helper functions like the above. They’re extremely handy and one of my favourite Eleventy features.