When you contribute to documentation, it's a good practice to build the docs on your local machine to make sure your changes appear as you expect. This README explains the process for doing that.
To build a local version, you need to run a process in a Docker container.
Grafana periodically updates the Docker image, [`docs-base`](https://hub.docker.com/r/grafana/docs-base), to update the styling of the Docs.
1. Run `make docs`. This launches a preview of the website with the current grafana docs at `http://localhost:3002/docs/grafana/latest/` which will refresh automatically when changes are made to content in the `sources` directory.
If you have the grafana/website repo checked out in the same directory as the grafana repo, then you can run `make docs-local-static` to use local assets (such as images).
Generally, one can edit content in the `sources` directory.
NOTE: the following paths are built instead from a typescript file and are auto-generated. Please do not edit these files directly.
Instead, navigate to the appropriate typescript source file and edit the content there, then follow the build instructions to generate the markdown files.
Use the Hugo shortcode [relref](https://gohugo.io/content-management/cross-references/#use-ref-and-relref) any time you are linking to other internal docs pages.
When moving content around or removing pages it's important that users following old links are properly redirected to the new location. We do this using the [aliases](https://gohugo.io/content-management/urls/#aliases) feature in Hugo.
If you are moving a page, add an `aliases` entry in the front matter referencing the old location of the page which will redirect the old url to the new location.
If you are removing a page, add an `aliases` entry in the front matter of the most-applicable page referencing the location of the page being removed.
If you are copying an existing page as the basis for a new one, be sure to remove any `aliases` entries in the front matter in your copy to avoid conflicting redirects.
The side menu is automatically build from the file structure. Use the [weight](https://gohugo.io/templates/lists/#by-weight) front matter parameter to order pages.
Please see our help documentation on [Image, diagram, and screenshot guidelines](https://grafana.com/docs/writers-toolkit/writing-guide/image-guidelines/) for comprehensive information.
When a PR is merged with changes in the `docs/sources` directory, those changes are automatically synced by a GitHub action (`.github/workflows/publish.yml`) to the grafana/website repo.
- A PR that targets the `main` branch syncs to the `content/docs/grafana/next` directory in the `website` repository, and publishes to `https://grafana.com/docs/grafana/next/`.
- A PR targeting the `latest/current` release branch syncs to the `content/docs/grafana/latest` directory in the `website` repository, and publishes to `https://grafana.com/docs/grafana/latest/`.
