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Version: 2.4.0

Installation

Docusaurus is essentially a set of npm packages.

tip

Use the Fast Track to understand Docusaurus in 5 minutes ⏱!

Use docusaurus.new to test Docusaurus immediately in your browser!

Requirements​

  • Node.js version 16.14 or above (which can be checked by running node -v). You can use nvm for managing multiple Node versions on a single machine installed.
    • When installing Node.js, you are recommended to check all checkboxes related to dependencies.

Scaffold project website​

The easiest way to install Docusaurus is to use the command line tool that helps you scaffold a skeleton Docusaurus website. You can run this command anywhere in a new empty repository or within an existing repository, it will create a new directory containing the scaffolded files.

npx create-docusaurus@latest my-website classic

We recommend the classic template so that you can get started quickly, and it contains features found in Docusaurus 1. The classic template contains @docusaurus/preset-classic which includes standard documentation, a blog, custom pages, and a CSS framework (with dark mode support). You can get up and running extremely quickly with the classic template and customize things later on when you have gained more familiarity with Docusaurus.

You can also use the template's TypeScript variant by passing the --typescript flag. See TypeScript support for more information.

npx create-docusaurus@latest my-website classic --typescript
FB-Only

If you are setting up a new Docusaurus website for a Facebook open source project, use the facebook template instead, which comes with some useful Facebook-specific defaults:

npx create-docusaurus@latest my-website facebook
Alternative installation commands

You can also initialize a new project using your preferred project manager:

npm init docusaurus

Run npx create-docusaurus@latest --help, or check out its API docs for more information about all available flags.

Project structure​

Assuming you chose the classic template and named your site my-website, you will see the following files generated under a new directory my-website/:

my-website
├── blog
│   ├── 2019-05-28-hola.md
│   ├── 2019-05-29-hello-world.md
│   └── 2020-05-30-welcome.md
├── docs
│   ├── doc1.md
│   ├── doc2.md
│   ├── doc3.md
│   └── mdx.md
├── src
│   ├── css
│   │   └── custom.css
│   └── pages
│       ├── styles.module.css
│       └── index.js
├── static
│   └── img
├── docusaurus.config.js
├── package.json
├── README.md
├── sidebars.js
└── yarn.lock

Project structure rundown​

  • /blog/ - Contains the blog Markdown files. You can delete the directory if you've disabled the blog plugin, or you can change its name after setting the path option. More details can be found in the blog guide
  • /docs/ - Contains the Markdown files for the docs. Customize the order of the docs sidebar in sidebars.js. You can delete the directory if you've disabled the docs plugin, or you can change its name after setting the path option. More details can be found in the docs guide
  • /src/ - Non-documentation files like pages or custom React components. You don't have to strictly put your non-documentation files here, but putting them under a centralized directory makes it easier to specify in case you need to do some sort of linting/processing
    • /src/pages - Any JSX/TSX/MDX file within this directory will be converted into a website page. More details can be found in the pages guide
  • /static/ - Static directory. Any contents inside here will be copied into the root of the final build directory
  • /docusaurus.config.js - A config file containing the site configuration. This is the equivalent of siteConfig.js in Docusaurus v1
  • /package.json - A Docusaurus website is a React app. You can install and use any npm packages you like in them
  • /sidebars.js - Used by the documentation to specify the order of documents in the sidebar

Monorepos​

If you are using Docusaurus for documentation of an existing project, a monorepo may be the solution for you. Monorepos allow you to share dependencies between similar projects. For example, your website may use your local packages to showcase the latest features, instead of depending on a released version; your contributors can also conveniently update the docs as they implement features. An example monorepo folder structure is below:

my-monorepo
├── package-a # Another package, your actual project
│   ├── src
│   └── package.json # Package A's dependencies
├── website   # Docusaurus root
│   ├── docs
│   ├── src
│   └── package.json # Docusaurus' dependencies
├── package.json # Monorepo's shared dependencies

In this case, you should run npx create-docusaurus within the ./my-monorepo folder.

If you're using a hosting provider such as Netlify or Vercel, you will need to change the Base directory of the site to where your Docusaurus root is. In this case, that would be ./website. Read more about configuring ignore commands in the deployment docs.

Read more about monorepos in the Yarn documentation (Yarn is not the only way to set up a monorepo, but it's a common solution), or checkout Docusaurus and Jest for some real-world examples.

Running the development server​

To preview your changes as you edit the files, you can run a local development server that will serve your website and reflect the latest changes.

cd my-website
npm run start

By default, a browser window will open at http://localhost:3000.

Congratulations! You have just created your first Docusaurus site! Browse around the site to see what's available.

Build​

Docusaurus is a modern static website generator so we need to build the website into a directory of static contents and put it on a web server so that it can be viewed. To build the website:

npm run build

and contents will be generated within the /build directory, which can be copied to any static file hosting service like GitHub pages, Vercel or Netlify. Check out the docs on deployment for more details.

Updating your Docusaurus version​

There are many ways to update your Docusaurus version. One guaranteed way is to manually change the version number in package.json to the desired version. Note that all @docusaurus/-namespaced packages should be using the same version.

caution

You are browsing the documentation of an outdated version. The snippet below shows how to upgrade to the latest version.

package.json
{
  "dependencies": {
    "@docusaurus/core": "2.4.0",
    "@docusaurus/preset-classic": "2.4.0",
    // ...
  }
}

Then, in the directory containing package.json, run your package manager's install command:

npm install

To check that the update occurred successfully, run:

npx docusaurus --version

You should see the correct version as output.

Alternatively, if you are using Yarn, you can do:

yarn upgrade @docusaurus/core@latest @docusaurus/preset-classic@latest
tip

Use new unreleased features of Docusaurus with the @canary npm dist tag

Problems?​

Ask for help on Stack Overflow, on our GitHub repository, our Discord server, or Twitter.