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Introduction
Papervine is a docs platform — it renders a docs site from a Git repo of MDX + a docs.json.
Papervine is a docs platform — it renders a docs site from a Git repo of MDX + a docs.json.
Papervine renders a fast, themeable documentation site from a folder of MDX + a
docs.json, in a format that is a drop-in for existing docs.json + MDX repos. Point
it at an existing docs.json repo and it renders unchanged.
These docs are written in Papervine’s own format and render in Papervine itself. The
source lives in docs/ and is
crawled in CI as a renderer regression test. If you can read this page, the dogfood works.
docs.json projects. Papervine reads the same docs.json +
MDX, matching its navigation schema and behavior so real repos migrate unchanged. We
smoke-test against real-world docs repos.{slug}.papervine.io,
a custom domain, or a path-based fallback (/sites/{slug}).These three rules drive most of the architecture. When in doubt, they win.
Unknown MDX components degrade to their children; a compile failure renders an inline notice, not a 500. A single bad page must not take down the site.
A single unexpected docs.json field must never break the site. Every field is lenient;
unknown keys pass through with a warning.
docs.json is compatible with existing docs.json projects so real repos migrate
unchanged. When unsure how something should behave, check it against a real-world
docs.json repo.
docs.json config, the component library,
and the renderer internals (the hybrid MDX pipeline you must not
break).These docs describe how the system works (evergreen reference). For the design
decisions, dated status notes, and roadmap rationale, see
SPEC.md; for what does and
doesn’t render yet versus real-world docs.json repos, see GAP-REPORT.md.