docusaurus-plugin-typedoc

A Docusaurus v2 plugin to build documentation with TypeDoc.

What does it do?

Generates static TypeDoc pages in Markdown with frontmatter as part of the Docusaurus build.

Installation

Install Docusaurus in the root of your project and install the plugin dependencies in the same location as the Docusaurus website directory.

npm install typedoc typedoc-plugin-markdown docusaurus-plugin-typedoc --save-dev

Usage

Config

Add the plugin to docusaurus.config.js and specify the required options (see options).

module.exports = {
  plugins: [
    [
      'docusaurus-plugin-typedoc',

      // Plugin / TypeDoc options
      {
        entryPoints: ['../src/index.ts'],
        tsconfig: '../tsconfig.json',
      },
    ],
  ],
};

TypeDoc will be bootstraped with the Docusaurus start and build cli commands:

"start": "docusaurus start",
"build": "docusaurus build",

Once built the docs will be available at /docs/api (or equivalent out directory).

Directory structure

├── docusauruss-website
    ├── build/ (static site dir)
    ├── docs/
    │   ├── api/ (compiled typedoc markdown)
    ├── docusaurus.config.js
    ├── package.json
    ├── sidebars.js
├──package.json
├──src (typescript source files)
├──tsconfig.json

Options

TypeDoc options

To configure TypeDoc, pass any relevant TypeDoc options to the config.

At a minimum the entryPoints and tsconfig options will need to be set.

entryPoints: ['../src/index.ts'],
tsconfig: '../tsconfig.json'

Additional TypeDoc plugins will need to be explicitly set:

plugin: ['typedoc-plugin-xyz'];

Other config options

TypeDoc options can also be declared:

• Using a typedoc.json file.
• Under the typedocOptions key in tsconfig.json.

Note: Options declared in this manner will take priority and overwrite options declared in docusaurus.config.js.

Plugin options

Options specific to the plugin should also be declared in the same object.

Name	Default	Description
out	"api"	Output dir relative to docs dir (use . for no subdir).
includeExtension	true	Determines whether to preserve the .md extension in relative links. true is recommended as per Docusaurus documentation
frontmatter	null	Additional frontmatter options object. See Frontmatter.
sidebar.categoryLabel	API	The sidebar parent category label.
sidebar.collapsed	true	Whether the parent category is initially collapsed
sidebar.fullNames	false	Display full names with module path.
sidebar.position	auto	The position of the sidebar in the tree.

An example configuration

module.exports = {
  plugins: [
    [
      'docusaurus-plugin-typedoc',
      {
        // TypeDoc options
        entryPoints: ['../src/index.ts'],
        tsconfig: '../tsconfig.json',
        plugin: ['typedoc-plugin-xyz'],

        // Plugin options
        out: 'api-xyz',
        sidebar: {
          categoryLabel: 'API XYZ',
          collapsed: false,
          position: 0,
          fullNames: true,
        },
      },
    ],
  ],
};

Recipes

Sidebar and Navbar

Sidebar

sidebars.js can be configured in following ways:

1. Generate the entire sidebar from file structure of your docs folder (default behaviour):

module.exports = {
  sidebar: [
    {
      type: 'autogenerated',
      dirName: '.', // '.' means the docs folder
    },
  ],
};

2. Alternatively, if you wish to manually control other parts of your sidebar you can use a slice for the TypeDoc sidebar.

note: sidebar.categoryLabel, sidebar.collapsed, and sidebar.position options are ignored with this implementation)

module.exports = {
  sidebar: {
    'Category 1': ['doc1', 'doc2', 'doc3'],
    API: [
      {
        type: 'autogenerated',
        dirName: 'api', // 'api' is the 'out' directory
      },
    ],
  },
};

Please see https://docusaurus.io/docs/sidebar for sidebar documentation.

Navbar

A navbar item can be configured in themeConfig options in docusaurus.config.js:

 themeConfig: {
    navbar: {
      items: [
        {
        to: 'docs/api/',  // 'api' is the 'out' directory
        activeBasePath: 'docs',
        label: 'API',
        position: 'left',
      },
    ],
  },
},

Please see https://docusaurus.io/docs/api/themes/configuration#navbar-items for navbar documentation.

Frontmatter

By default the plugin will configure minimal required Frontmatter configuration. Additionally required global Frontmatter options can be passed in using the frontmatter options object

docusaurus.config.js:

plugins: [
    [
      'docusaurus-plugin-typedoc',
      {
      // .... other plugin option
      frontmatter: {
        pagination_prev: null,
        pagination_next: null
      }
    ]
]

Multi instance

It is possible to build multi TypeDoc instances by passing in multiple configs with unique ids:

docusaurus.config.js

module.exports = {
  plugins: [
    [
      'docusaurus-plugin-typedoc',
      {
        id: 'api-1',
        entryPoints: ['../api-1/src/index.ts'],
        tsconfig: '../api-1/tsconfig.json',
        out: 'api-1',
      },
    ],
    [
      'docusaurus-plugin-typedoc',
      {
        id: 'api-2',
        entryPoints: ['../api-2/src/index.ts'],
        tsconfig: '../api-2/tsconfig.json',
        out: 'api-2',
      },
    ],
  ],
};

Watch mode

Watching files is supported by passing in the watch: true option see https://typedoc.org/guides/options/#watch.

Targetting the option in development mode only can be achieved using Node.js Environment Variables:

package.json

"start": "TYPEDOC_WATCH=true docusaurus start",
"build": "TYPEDOC_WATCH=false docusaurus build",

docusaurus.config.js

module.exports = {
  plugins: [
    [
      'docusaurus-plugin-typedoc',
      {
        entryPoints: ['../src/index.ts'],
        tsconfig: '../tsconfig.json',
        watch: process.env.TYPEDOC_WATCH,
      },
    ],
  ],
};

Monorepo setup

docusaurus.config.js

module.exports = {
  plugins: [
    [
      'docusaurus-plugin-typedoc',
      {
        entryPoints: ['../packages/package-a', '../packages/package-b'],
        entryPointStrategy: 'packages',
        sidebar: {
          fullNames: true,
        },
      },
    ],
  ],
};

License

MIT