Build the documentation

The documentation source files are under the ../content directory in the corda-docs-portal repository, and are written in markdown format.

The documentation output in HTML format is generated using Hugo. You can build and edit the docs locally using npm and a markdown editor.

Build the docs locally

Steps:

1. Install npm
2. Install a markdown editor of your choice.
3. Fork the corda/corda-docs-portal repository, and clone your fork.
4. From the root directory of the repository, run npm install. This installs all the required modules to build the documentation locally.
5. Open a new branch and create/edit the relevant markdown file(s) in the content directory.
6. Run hugo server to build the documentation locally. After you make changes, the content should refresh dynamically.
7. If the hugo server command didn’t work, run hugo server --watch=false. Please note that due to an existing unresolved Hugo bug that manifests for larger websites like docs.r3.com, it may not possible to build the documentation locally with dynamic content refresh - you need to CTRL-C and run the build again after you make changes to your content.
8. Navigate to https://localhost:1313 to view the locally built documentation.
9. Push your changes to GitHub and open a pull request.

Contribute to documentation updates

To propose an update to the public released Corda docs, fork the corda-docs-portal repository, make your changes, and submit a pull request targeting the main branch in the upstream repository from your fork.

Steps

1. Fork the corda-docs-portal repository and add it as upstream (or sync your existing fork with the upstream repo’s main branch - see below for instructions).
2. Edit the documentation files in a new branch in your fork.
3. Commit and push the changes to your fork.
4. Create a pull request targeting the main branch in the upstream repo. Your pull request will be auto-assigned to R3’s Technical Writing Team for review.

Where are the files

The documentation for all released versions of Corda Open Source Edition, Corda Enterprise, Corda Enterprise Network Manager (CENM), and Corda 5 are organized in sub-directories, following the version and then the product flavor. For example:

../corda-docs-portal/content/en/platform/corda/4.12/community/

Edit web pages directly in Visual Studio Code

After installing Hugo and Visual Studio Code, run the following commands per operating system.

Windows Powershell (assuming there are no spaces in your directory names):

.\serve_and_edit.ps1

Mac/Linux:

make local-serve-and-edit

Or if you want to use Docker:

hugo-serve-and-edit

As a result, there will be an extra icon in the title bar of your local docs site, which should open the current page in Visual Studio Code:

Edit web pages directly in Atom

After installing Hugo and Atom (you need to install the open package!), run the following commands per operating system.

If this is your preferred editor, then consider setting HUGO_PARAMS_EDITOR in your environment.

Windows Powershell:

$env:HUGO_PARAMS_EDITOR="atom"
.\serve_and_edit.ps1

Mac/Linux:

export HUGO_PARAMS_EDITOR=atom
make local-serve-and-edit

Or if you want to use Docker:

export HUGO_PARAMS_EDITOR=atom
make hugo-serve-and-edit

Keep your fork in sync with the upstream repo

The best way to keep your fork in sync with the main documentation repository is to add it as the upstream repository after you create the fork.

Add the upstream repo

To add upstream:

cd <to-your-fork-repo-dir>
git remote add upstream git://github.com/corda/corda-docs-portal.git

The URL of a remote can be changed using the git remote set-url command.

You would normally only need do this once after you create the fork.

If you are not using an ssh key to access GitHub, use the https URL instead:

git remote add upstream https://github.com/corda/corda-docs-portal.git

If you’ve got the upstream repo URL wrong, you can change the upstream repo URL using the following command:

git remote set-url upstream https://github.com/corda/corda-docs-portal.git

View your remotes

To view your remotes:

git remote -v

You should see something like this:

git remote -v

origin	git@github.com:my-github-username/corda-docs-portal.git (fetch)   # YOUR FORK
origin	git@github.com:my-github-username/corda-docs-portal.git (push)
upstream	git@github.com:corda/corda-docs-portal.git (fetch)      # THE ORIGINAL REPO
upstream	git@github.com:corda/corda-docs-portal.git (push)

Alternatively, if you are accessing GitHub without an ssh key:

git remote -v

origin	https://github.com/my-github-username/corda-docs-portal.git (fetch)   # YOUR FORK
origin	https://github.com/my-github-username/corda-docs-portal.git (push)
upstream	https://github.com/corda/corda-docs-portal.git (fetch)      # THE ORIGINAL REPO
upstream	https://github.com/corda/corda-docs-portal.git (push)

Remove the upstream repo

If you need to remove the upstream repo for any reason:

git remote rm upstream

Keep the upstream repo updated

To keep the upstream updated (in other words, to fetch all the stuff from the upstream repo):

git fetch upstream

Sync your fork

There are two ways in which you can do this - merge or rebase.

Merge the upstream with your fork

To sync your fork via merge:

git merge upstream/main main

This command will merge the latest changes from the main branch of the upstream into your local fork’s main branch.

To merge a different branch, replace main with the name of that branch for both repos.

For example, to merge a branch called example-branch, run the following:

git checkout example-branch
git merge upstream/example-branch example-branch

Rebase the upstream with your fork

git rebase upstream/main

To rebase a different branch, replace main with the name of that branch for both repos.

For example, to rebase a branch called example-branch, run the following:

git checkout example-branch
git rebase upstream/example-branch example-branch

Push from the local fork main to the origin fork main

After the merge or rebase, don’t forget to push your local fork’s main branch (or another branch you’ve synced) to the fork origin main (or another corresponding branch).

For example:

git push origin main