TypeDoc

Create api documentations for typescript projects.

Installation

TypeDoc runs on Node.js and is available as an NPM package. You can install TypeDoc in your project's directory as usual:

$ npm install typedoc --save-dev

Like the TypeScript compiler, TypeDoc comes with a binary that can be called from anywhere if you install TypeDoc as a global module. The name of the executable is typedoc.

$ npm install typedoc --global
$ typedoc

Preview

If you want to know what a documentation created with TypeDoc looks like, head over to the GitHub page of the project. It contains an api documentation of TypeDoc generated with TypeDoc:

http://sebastian-lenz.github.io/typedoc

Usage

Shell

TypeDoc accepts most of the command line arguments that the TypeScript compiler accepts. One major difference is the fact that one may pass an entire directory instead of individual files to the documentation generator. So in order to create a documentation for an entire project you simply type:

$ typedoc --out path/to/documentation/ path/to/typescript/project/

Arguments

--out <path/to/documentation/>

Specifies the location the documentation should be written to.

--name <Documentation title>

Set the name of the project that will be used in the header of the template.

--module <commonjs or amd>

Specify module code generation: "commonjs" or "amd"

--target <ES3 or ES5>

Specify ECMAScript target version: "ES3" (default), or "ES5"

--exclude <pattern>

Exclude files by the given pattern when a path is provided as source

--theme <path/to/theme>

Specify the path to the theme that should be used

--includeDeclarations

Turn on parsing of .d.ts declaration files.

--externalPattern <pattern>

Define a pattern for files that should be considered being external.

--excludeExternals

Prevent externally resolved TypeScript files from being documented.

--verbose

Print more information while TypeDoc is running.

Gulp

There is a plugin available to run TypeDoc with Gulp created by Rogier Schouten. You can find it on NPM: https://www.npmjs.org/package/gulp-typedoc/

Grunt

There is a plugin available to run TypeDoc with Grunt created by Bart van der Schoor. You can find it on NPM: https://www.npmjs.org/package/grunt-typedoc

Document your code

TypeDoc runs the TypeScript compiler and extracts type information from the generated compiler symbols. Therefore you don't have to include additional metadata within your comments, TypeScript specific elements like classes, enumerations or property types and access modifiers will be automatically detected.

All comments parsed as markdown. TypeDoc uses the Marked (https://github.com/chjj/marked) markdown parser and HighlightJS (https://github.com/isagalaev/highlight.js) to highlight code blocks within markdown sections. Additionally you can link to other classes, members or functions using double angle brackets.

JavaDoc tags

The documentation generator currently understands these javadoc tags:

• @param <param name>
• @retrun(s)

All other tags will be rendered as definition lists, so they are not lost.

Function signatures

When writing documentation for function signatures, you don't have to repeat yourself. TypeDoc automatically copies comments and tags of the function implementation to its signatures for you. Of course you can still overwrite them if you wish to.

/**
 * @param text  Comment for parameter ´text´.
 */
function doSomething(target:any, text:string):number;

/**
 * @param value  Comment for parameter ´value´.
 * @returns      Comment for special return value.
 */
function doSomething(target:any, value:number):number;

/**
 * Comment for method ´doSomething´.
 * @param target  Comment for parameter ´target´.
 * @returns       Comment for return value.
 */
function doSomething(target:any, arg:any):number {
    return 0;
}