Docs

Markdown reference and styling

• Learn Markdown reference
• Text formatting guidelines
• Use links in documentation

Local development

Prerequisites

• Familiarity with the command line
• Install .NET SDK 8.0 or higher
• Install Node.js v20 or higher (Optional: It's required when using Create PDF Files)

Make sure you have .NET SDK installed, then open a terminal and enter the following command to install the latest docfx:

dotnet tool update -g docfx

Live reload (recommended)

1. Install dependencies (one-time): npm install
2. Build once to create _site: npm run build
3. Start watch + live reload: npm run watch

This runs docfx build on Markdown/YAML changes and serves _site at http://localhost:8080 with BrowserSync auto-reloading the page.

Manual DocFX serve

If you prefer the CLI only:

docfx docfx.json --serve

This hosts the last build on http://localhost:8080; rerun docfx docfx.json after edits to regenerate _site.

Local and faster builds

By using docfx.local.json for local development, you can avoid the PDF generation process and speed up the build time.

This command walks you through creating a new docfx project under the current working directory. To build the docset, run:

docfx docfx.local.json --serve

To preview your local changes, save changes then run this command in a new terminal to rebuild the website:

docfx docfx.local.json