I would quite like to be able to run ikiwiki in a "CGI-only" mode, where every wikilink was routed via the cgi, and such "normal" page visits were rendered on the fly by the CGI, a bit like edit-preview mode.

The reason I'd like this is I would like to have a number of parallel ikiwiki instances running alongside my prime one, based on the same source repository; but with different setup parameters (such as possibly different overlay or template directories, etc.).

I would still need to have multiple copies of the source repository (= separate .ikiwiki directories, seperate locks); but I could use git-relink or shallow clones or various other methods to limit the disk-space impact of that; what I want to avoid is multiple destination directories, especially for what might be relatively throw-away experiments.

I imagine if this was possible, it would be hella-slow, but it would still be useful I think (and might even help to highlight some of the pain points for future optimisation efforts).

— Jon