For wording, list punctuation, and capitalization conventions, use the Docs Style Guide .
Content Structure Rules
The docs system is path-derived.
- book landing page:
website/content/docs/<version>/<book>/_index.md - section landing page:
website/content/docs/<version>/<book>/<section>/_index.md - article page:
website/content/docs/<version>/<book>/<section>/<page>/index.md
Section landing pages are optional. A section may be structural only, with no _index.md and no _inherit.md. This Website Dev Guide uses structural-only sections.
Example: Add a New Page
Suppose you want a new page under website-dev-guide/authoring-and-tooling/.
Create the content bundle:
website/content/docs/0.7/website-dev-guide/authoring-and-tooling/new-page/index.md
Then add the page slug to the matching nav section:
[pages.website-dev-guide.authoring-and-tooling]
items = [
"docs-authoring-workflow",
"docs-editor-tool",
"new-page",
]
Without the nav update, the page may exist on disk but stay absent from generated navigation.
Example: Reuse an Older Page without Copying the Content
When a newer version should reuse the same page unchanged:
- create the same page folder in the newer version
- add an empty
inherit.md - keep the corresponding path in an older version with real
index.mdcontent
Example:
website/content/docs/0.8/website-dev-guide/site-systems/media-publishing-workflow/inherit.md
Do not put front matter or body content into inherit.md.
Example: Diverge in a Newer Version
If a newer version needs different content, replace the marker with a real page:
- remove
inherit.md - create
index.md - write the new content for that version
That keeps the inheritance chain explicit and avoids template-side special cases.
Navigation Rules
Navigation data controls order, not content. Keep these rules in mind:
- slugs in the nav file must match the folder names on disk
- changing a slug changes the public URL
- page titles come from the page’s own front matter, not from the nav file
- section titles come from
docs-nav/<version>.toml
When to Use the Docs Editor Instead of Manual File Edits
Manual edits are normal for copy changes inside an existing page.
Use the docs editor when the change is structural, for example:
- creating a new book
- creating, deleting, or renaming a section
- creating, deleting, or renaming a page
- changing docs structure across inherited versions
The docs editor keeps content paths and nav data in sync and refuses destructive changes that would silently overwrite newer authored content.
Validation
For docs and website changes, run:
cd website
npm run build
That is the minimum meaningful verification because it runs theme generation, docs validation, inherited-doc materialization, Hugo rendering, and homepage CTA validation.