Documentation builds
docs-builder is a distributed documentation build system. Rather than pulling all content into a single repository, each team maintains documentation in their own repo and docs-builder combines the results into cohesive documentation sites.
Build a single repository's documentation for local development, PR previews, or publishing as a standalone static site (e.g. to GitHub Pages). The baseline that assembler and codex extend — content-set and page configuration apply here.
Assembler and codex builds compose over many isolated builds — each repository is built independently, then the results are combined into a unified experience.
Compose a unified documentation website with global navigation across multiple repositories. Used for public documentation sites like elastic.co/docs.
Create knowledge base environments where multiple repositories publish independently under a shared domain. Simpler setup with no centralized navigation composition.
All three build modes share the same syntax foundations. A repository's docset.yml defines its documentation set, and the same Markdown content renders identically regardless of build mode.
Cross-repository linking is what makes distributed builds possible. When a repository builds, it publishes a link index — a manifest of every page and anchor it contains. Other repositories validate their cross-links against these published indexes, ensuring references stay correct even though repositories build independently.
Learn more about the link infrastructure.