Contented is a Markdown-based authoring workflow that encourage developer authoring within its contextual Git repository. (npm i @birthdayresearch/contented)

With a headless design of 2 config files (package.json & contented.js), developers can start writing their markdown content and preview it on their localhost (contented write). Choosing convention over configuration reduces HTML/UI clutter, allowing developers to focus on authoring.

Authored content can be continuously delivered (CD) into a hosted static site (e.g., GitHub Pages/Netlify/Vercel) for preview (contented generate). As code drift, so does documentation; this allows each pull request to have an accompanying sharable preview of the documentation. With CD, it effectively shift-left your documentation workflow and checks it is compilable and presentable.

By encouraging authoring next to the source (in the same git repo), developers can contextually document changes as they develop. All domain-specific changes will go into the main branch with one Git Pull Request.

With (contented build), you can compile your markdown into sources (index.js & *.json with *.d.ts) that output into ./dist. (npm publish) them into any registry of your choice, for you can easily npm i @your-scope/your-npm-package and use the processed content on any of your downstream sites. Easily pulling up-to-date content and prose from individual domain-specific repositories and re-presented. Think microservices, but for your prose!

Motivation

If you don’t make it easy to get something done (authoring), nobody will go out of their way to get it done perfectly every time. Turn it into a GitOps workflow and give people the necessary tools and power to get it done perfectly every single time — everyone will get it done, as now there is no other way else to get it done. An efficient workflow naturally satisfies.

Getting Started

repo/
├─ packages/**          <- Project Tree
├─ docs/                <- Documentation Tree (standalone)
│  ├─ 01:Title 1/*.md
│  ├─ 02:Title 2/*.md
│  ├─ 03:Title 3/
│  │  ├─ 01:Subtitle 1/*.md
│  │  ├─ 02:overview.md
│  │  └─ 03:faq.md
│  ├─ contented.js
│  └─ package.json
├─ package.json
└─ README.md

package.json

{
  "name": "@birthdayresearch/contented-example",
  "version": "0.0.0",
  "private": false,
  "files": ["dist"],
  "main": "dist/index.mjs",
  "types": "dist/index.d.ts",
  "scripts": {
    "write": "contented write",
    "generate": "contented generate",
    "build": "contented build"
  },
  "devDependencies": {
    "@birthdayresearch/contented": "0.0.0"
  },
  "contented": {
    "url": "https://contented.dev",
    "name": "Contented",
    "github": {
      "url": "https://github.com/BirthdayResearch/contented"
    }
  }
}

contented.js

const Doc = {
  name: 'Doc',
  filePathPattern: `**/*.md`,
  fields: {
    title: {
      type: 'string',
      description: 'The title of the documentation.',
      required: true,
      default: 'Contented',
    },
    description: {
      type: 'string',
      required: false,
    },
    tags: {
      type: 'list',
      of: { type: 'string' },
      default: [],
      required: false,
    },
  },
};

export default {
  rootDir: 'docs',
  types: [Doc],
};

Examples

Just Another SSG?

This is not a static site generator. This is a markdown processor workflow with a built-in static site generator. The outcome we’re trying to achieve is this @birthdayresearch/contented-example/dist

GitHub

View Github