Docship NPM | npm.io

Docship

A simple static website generator built for your docs directory.

Features

Zero config: Just run docship in your docs directory. That's it.
No intrusive conventions: No src/pages or _posts directories. Place your markdown files as you like.
Zero client-side JavaScript: No bloated JavaScript code in your website by default.
JSX-based layouts with Tailwind: Use JSX to define your page layouts, with built-in Tailwind support.
Watch mode: Try docship --watch.
Publish quickly: Deploy to Vercel automatically with a Git push (see below).

Why yet another static site generator?

I just want to turn my docs into HTMLs in a single command, with good default config.
I want something intutive for contributors in my projects, even for non-frontend engineers. They just need to remember docship --watch.
I want to write templates in JSX + Tailwind, but without any client-side JavaScript (such as React). My websites are completely static.

Quickstart

npm install -g docship  # Install docship
cd path/to/docs         # Move to your docs directory
docship                 # Generate HTML files ("output" directory by default)

If you want to preview your website with a local server:

docship --watch

Deploy to Vercel

Create vercel.json in your project root:

{
  "framework": null,
  "buildCommand": "docship",
  "installCommand": "npm i -g docship",
  "outputDirectory": "output",
  "cleanUrls": true,
  "trailingSlash": false,
  "github": {
    "silent": true
  }
}

Connect your GitHub repository to Vercel.
Change the Node.js version in Vercel Dashboard (Settings > General > Node.js Version). Docship requires 20.x or higher.
Done! Your website will be deployed automatically on every push.

Directory structure

docship will look for markdown and asset files recursively in the input directory.
Files and directories starting with _ are ignored.
The directory structure is preserved in the output directory. For example, /blog/why-you-should-visit-kumamoto.md will be output to /blog/why-you-should-visit-kumamoto.html.
Layouts are defined in the _layouts directory. The layout for a page is determined by the layout field in the markdown front-matter.

├── favicon.ico    -- Static files are copied as-is
├── index.md       -- /index.html (you may also use README.md for /index.html)
├── docship.mjs    -- Configuration file (optional)
├── _layouts/      -- Layouts directory
│   ├── blog.jsx     -- Layout for "blog" pages
│   └── index.jsx    -- Layout for "index" page
└── blog/                                 -- "blog" directory
   ├── why-you-should-visit-kumamoto.md     -- A public blog post
   ├── best-cappucino-in-rome.md            -- Another post
   └── _lessons-learned-from-my-life.md     -- A draft (ignored) post

Markdown front-matter

Front-matter is a block of YAML at the beginning of a file that specifies metadata about the file. For example:

---
title: Best cappucino in Rome
layout: blog
date: 2024-11-30
---

Fields

Fields can be any valid YAML but the following fields are used by docship:

Name	Type	Description
`layout`	`string`	The layout name in the `_layouts` directory. Required.
`title`	`string`	The title of the page.
`date`	`string`	The date of the page.

JSX-based layouts

Page layouts are defined in JSX files in the _layouts directory.
Tailwind is built-in. You can use Tailwind classes in your JSX files.
Functions can be async to fetch data from external sources. If you're familiar with Next.js, it's somewhat similar to getStaticProps.

export function Blog({ meta, children }) {
  return (
    <html>
      <head>
        <title>{meta.title}</title>
      </head>
      <body>
        <header>
          <h1>{meta.title}</h1>
          <p>{meta.date}</p>
        </header>
        <main>
          {children}
        </main>
      </body>
    </html>
  );
}

Parameters

Name	Type	Description
`meta`	`Record<string, boolean \\| number \\| string \\| any>`	Front-matter of the markdown file.
`children`	`Element`	The content of the markdown file.
`pages`	`Page[]`	An array of all pages. Useful for generating an index page.

!NOTE
Limitations:
React is not available. We use JSX as a templating language to generate fully static HTML files.
Importing components is not (yet) supported. You can only use Node.js built-in modules.

Atom feed

docship can generate an Atom feed for your website. To enable the feed, add the following to your docship.mjs:

export default {
  baseUrl: "https://seiya.me",
  feedOptions: {
    title: "seiya.me",
    id: "https://seiya.me",
    link: "https://seiya.me",
    author: {
      name: "Seiya Nuta",
    }
  },
  callbacks: {
    filterFeed(page) {
      // Don't include the index page in the feed.
      return page.href != "/index";
    },
  }
}

The feed file will be generated at /feed.xml.