README

DevDocs — API Documentation Browser

DevDocs combines multiple developer documentations in a clean and organized web UI with instant search, offline support, mobile version, dark theme, keyboard shortcuts, and more.

DevDocs was created by Thibaut Courouble and is operated by freeCodeCamp.

 We are currently searching for maintainers

Please reach out to the community on Discord if you would like to join the team!

Keep track of development news:

 Join the contributors chat room on Discord
 Watch the repository on GitHub

Table of Contents: Quick Start · Vision · App · Scraper · Commands · Contributing · Documentation · Related Projects · License · Questions?

 Quick Start

Unless you wish to contribute to the project, we recommend using the hosted version at devdocs.io. It's up-to-date and works offline out-of-the-box.

 Using Docker (Recommended)

The easiest way to run DevDocs locally is using Docker:

sh
docker run --name devdocs -d -p 9292:9292 ghcr.io/freecodecamp/devdocs:latest


This will start DevDocs at localhost:9292. We provide both regular and Alpine-based images:
- ghcr.io/freecodecamp/devdocs:latest - Standard image
- ghcr.io/freecodecamp/devdocs:latest-alpine - Alpine-based (smaller size)

Images are automatically built and updated monthly with the latest documentation.

Alternatively, you can build the image yourself:

sh
git clone https://github.com/freeCodeCamp/devdocs.git && cd devdocs
docker build -t devdocs .
docker run --name devdocs -d -p 9292:9292 devdocs


 Manual Installation

DevDocs is made of two pieces: a Ruby scraper that generates the documentation and metadata, and a JavaScript app powered by a small Sinatra app.

DevDocs requires Ruby 4.0.9 (defined in Gemfile), libcurl, webp, bsdtar (included in macOS, the libarchive-tools package on Debian and Alpine), and a JavaScript runtime supported by ExecJS (included in OS X and Windows; Node.js on Linux). On Arch Linux run pacman -S ruby ruby-bundler ruby-erb ruby-irb.

Once you have these installed, run the following commands:

sh
git clone https://github.com/freeCodeCamp/devdocs.git && cd devdocs
gem install bundler
bundle install
bundle exec thor docs:download --default
bundle exec rackup


Finally, point your browser at localhost:9292 (the first request will take a few seconds to compile the assets). You're all set.

The thor docs:download command is used to download pre-generated documentations from DevDocs's servers (e.g. thor docs:download html css). You can see the list of available documentations and versions by running thor docs:list. To update all downloaded documentations, run thor docs:download --installed. To download and install all documentation this project has available, run thor docs:download --all.

Note: there is currently no update mechanism other than git pull origin main to update the code and thor docs:download --installed to download the latest version of the docs. To stay informed about new releases, be sure to watch this repository.

 Vision

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