Versioning

You can use the version script to cut a new documentation version based on the latest content in the docs directory. That specific set of documentation will then be preserved and accessible even as the documentation in the docs directory changes moving forward.

⚠️ Disclaimer

Consider it really well before starting to version your documentation.

Most of the times, you don't need versioning and it will just increase your build time and introduces complexity to your codebase. Versioning is best suited for website with high-traffic and rapid changes in documentation between version. If your documentation rarely changes, don't version.

To better understand how versioning works and see if it suits your needs, you can read up below.

Directory structure

website
├── sidebars.json        # sidebar for master (next) version
├── docs                 # docs directory for master (next) version
│   ├── foo
│   │   └── bar.md       # https://mysite.com/docs/next/foo/bar
│   └── hello.md         # https://mysite.com/docs/next/hello
├── versions.json        # file to indicate what versions are available
├── versioned_docs
│   ├── version-1.1.0
│   │   ├── foo
│   │   │   └── bar.md   # https://mysite.com/docs/foo/bar
│   │   └── hello.md
│   └── version-1.0.0
│       ├── foo
│       │   └── bar.md   # https://mysite.com/docs/1.0.0/foo/bar
│       └── hello.md
├── versioned_sidebars
│   ├── version-1.1.0-sidebars.json
│   └── version-1.0.0-sidebars.json
├── docusaurus.config.js
└── package.json

The table below explains how a versioned file maps to its version and the generated URL.

Path	Version	URL
versioned_docs/version-1.0.0/hello.md	1.0.0	/docs/1.0.0/hello
versioned_docs/version-1.1.0/hello.md	1.1.0 (latest)	/docs/hello
docs/hello.md	next	/docs/next/hello

Tagging a new version

1. First, make sure your content in the docs directory is ready to be frozen as a version. A version always should be based from master.
2. Enter a new version number.

• npm
• Yarn

npm run docusaurus docs:version 1.1.0

When tagging a new version, the document versioning mechanism will:

• Copy the full docs/ folder contents into a new versioned_docs/version-<version>/ folder.
• Create a versioned sidebars file based from your current sidebar configuration (if it exists). Saved it as versioned_sidebars/version-<version>-sidebars.json.
• Append the new version number into versions.json.

Files

Creating new files

1. Place the new file into the corresponding version folder.
2. Include the reference for the new file into the corresponding sidebar file, according to version number.

Master docs

# The new file.
docs/new.md
# Edit the corresponding sidebar file.
sidebar.js

Older docs

# The new file.
versioned_docs/version-1.0.0/new.md
# Edit the corresponding sidebar file.
versioned_sidebars/version-1.0.0-sidebars.json

Linking files

• Remember to include the .md extension.
• Files will be linked to correct corresponding version.
• Relative paths work as well.

The [@hello](hello.md#paginate) document is great!
See the [Tutorial](../getting-started/tutorial.md) for more info.

Versions

Each directory in versioned_docs/ will represent a documentation version.

Updating an existing version

You can update multiple docs versions at the same time. Because each directory in versioned_docs/ represents specific routes when published.

1. Edit any file.
2. Commit and push changes.
3. It will be published to the version.

Example: When you change any file in versioned_docs/version-2.6/, it will only affect the docs for version 2.6.

Deleting an existing version

You can delete/remove versions as well.

1. Remove the version from versions.json.

Example:

[
  "2.0.0",
  "1.9.0",
- "1.8.0"
]

2. Delete the versioned docs directory. Example: versioned_docs/version-1.8.0.
3. Delete the versioned sidebars file. Example: versioned_sidebars/version-1.8.0-sidebars.json.

Recommended practices

Version your documentation only when needed

For example, you are building a documentation for your npm package foo and you are currently in version 1.0.0. You then release a patch version for a minor bug fix and it's now 1.0.1.

Should you cut a new documentation version 1.0.1? You probably shouldn't. 1.0.1 and 1.0.0 docs shouldn't differ according to semver because there are no new features!. Cutting a new version for it will only just create unnecessary duplicated files.

Keep the number of versions small

As a good rule of thumb, try to keep the number of your versions below 10. It is very likely that you will have a lot of obsolete versioned documentation that nobody even reads anymore. For example, Jest is currently in version 24.9, and only maintains several latest documentation version with the lowest being 22.X. Keep it small 😊

Use absolute import within the docs

Don't use relative paths import within the docs. Because when we cut a version the paths no longer work (the nesting level is different, among other reasons). You can utilize the @site alias provided by docusaurus, that points to the website directory. Example:

- import Foo from '../src/components/Foo';
+ import Foo from '@site/src/components/Foo';