docline

docline turns .md and .mdx into a beautiful, structured docs UI fast, with zero cost and full ownership.

Built for teams moving away from expensive paid tools, docline gives you a professional docs experience without platform lock-in.

Live Theme Previews

Animated theme tour:

Effects tour (theme + contrast + density + reading focus):

Theme preview dropdown (12 themes)

Ayu Light | Catppuccin Latte | GitHub Light

Solarized Light | Tokyo Night Storm | Dracula Pro

One Dark Pro | Night Owl | Solarized Dark

Material Ocean | Catppuccin Mocha | Gruvbox Dark

Open live docs: https://doclines.github.io/docline-core

Core Features

• Feature-first configuration for consistent documentation at scale
• Fast, reliable search across all pages
• Rich authoring experience with reusable content blocks
• Versioned and multilingual documentation support
• Portable output you can host anywhere
• Built-in quality checks for content health and accessibility

Quick Start

npx create-docline@latest my-docs
cd my-docs
npx create-docline@latest dev

Scaffold Options

• --docs-mode standard for single-context docs
• --docs-mode versioned for version + locale docs
• --branding keep|remove for attribution preference
• --badge-style minimal|full for branding style
• --pm npm|pnpm|yarn|bun for package manager selection
• --no-install to skip dependency installation

Main Commands

• npx create-docline@latest dev start local preview
• npx create-docline@latest validate run docs/config validation
• npx create-docline@latest broken-links check internal links and anchors
• npx create-docline@latest check run validation + link checks
• npx create-docline@latest a11y run accessibility checks
• npx create-docline@latest export create distributable static package

Setup Guide

1. Install and start

npx create-docline@latest my-docs
cd my-docs
npm install
npm run dev

2. Edit your main config

• Create docs.json in the project root if it does not exist, then update branding, theme, navigation, versions, and locales.
• Keep content.roots pointed to folders that contain your markdown/MDX docs.
• For versioned docs, define contentMatrix.entries with version, locale, roots, and navigation.

3. Add or update your docs pages

• Place content in your configured docs roots.
• Versioned mode example: docs/v1/en/, docs/v1/es/, docs/v2/en/.
• Standard mode example: docs/ (single context, no locale folders).
• Add .md or .mdx pages.
• Register page paths in navigation so they appear in sidebar/top tabs.
• Versioned mode: update navigation inside each contentMatrix.entries[].navigation block.
• Standard mode: update top-level navigation.tabs in docs.json.

4. Validate and build

npm run validate
npm run build

5. How doc loading works

• npm run docs:compile scans configured roots and generates src/generated/docline-content.json.
• The app loads from that generated file at runtime for fast search/navigation.
• If a page is missing in UI, check: file path, content.roots, and navigation/contentMatrix entries.

Branding Assets

Use theme-aware favicon icons and a single top-left wordmark logo in docs.json:

{
	"favicon": {
		"light": "/logos/light.svg",
		"dark": "/logos/dark.svg"
	},
	"branding": {
		"logo": {
			"src": "/logos/wordmark.svg",
			"variant": "wordmark",
			"showText": false
		}
	}
}

Deployment

docline output is deployment-ready and can be hosted on any modern static hosting platform.

Repository

git clone https://github.com/doclines/docline-core
cd docline-core
npm install
npm run dev

License

Licensed under the MIT License.