Documenting TypeScript

If your API is written in TypeScript, or in JavaScript with JSDoc comments, its reference can come from the source. TypeDoc reads your code and its doc comments, the @doc-kit/typedoc plugin writes them as doc-kit Markdown (a page per export, with signatures, typed lists, stability and source links), and doc-kit builds those pages into one site with your hand-written guides.

It takes two commands: npx typedoc writes the reference into docs/api/, then npx doc-kit generate builds everything in docs/.

npm install --save-dev typedoc@0.28 @doc-kit/typedoc @doc-kit/cli @doc-kit/generator-react

typedoc and @doc-kit/typedoc write the reference; the plugin is built for TypeDoc 0.28. @doc-kit/cli and @doc-kit/generator-react build the site, as in Getting started.

Create typedoc.config.mjs next to your package.json:

import { load } from '@doc-kit/typedoc';

export default {
  plugin: [load],
  entryPoints: ['src/index.ts'],
  // Source links are relative to it: the root of your repository
  basePath: '.',
  docKit: 'docs/api',
};

• plugin: [load] passes the plugin itself, not its package name. TypeDoc imports plugins named by a string from its own installation, where package managers such as pnpm hide your project's dependencies, so passing load works with any package manager.
• docKit sets where the reference goes. With it set, TypeDoc skips its own HTML output.
• basePath makes the source links relative to your repository's root, so they match your files on GitHub.

Everything else, such as entry points, the tsconfig and which exports to include, is configured with TypeDoc's own options.

npx typedoc

TypeDoc finds typedoc.config.mjs in the working directory, and the plugin writes the reference in TypeDoc's folder layout:

docs/api/
├── functions/
│   └── adopt.md
├── interfaces/
│   └── Kitten.md
├── pages.json
└── type-map.json

• A page per exported class, interface, enum, type alias, function and variable, in classes/, interfaces/, enums/, types/, functions/ and variables/. Namespaces, and modules when you have several entry points, get a page in modules/.
• type-map.json maps each type name to its page, so doc-kit can link type annotations to it.
• pages.json lists the pages, for your site's navigation.

There's no page for the project itself: that one is yours to write, for example as docs/index.md.

Take this source file:

/** A kitten, adopted or not. */
export interface Kitten {
  /** The kitten's name. */
  name: string;
}

/**
 * Adopts a kitten, once the paperwork is done.
 *
 * @param name - The kitten's name.
 * @param options - How to adopt it.
 * @param options.color - Coat color.
 * @param options.signal - Cancels the adoption.
 * @returns The adopted kitten.
 * @experimental
 */
export async function adopt(
  name: string,
  options: { color?: string; signal?: AbortSignal } = {}
): Promise<Kitten> {
  return { name };
}

The plugin writes adopt() as this page:

# `adopt(name[, options])`

<!-- YAML
title: "Function: adopt()"
source_link: src/index.ts#L17
-->

> [Stability: 1](documentation.html#stability-index) - Experimental

- `name` {string} The kitten's name.
- `options` {Object} How to adopt it. **Default:** `{}`.
  - `color` {string} Coat color.
  - `signal` {AbortSignal} Cancels the adoption.
- Returns: {Promise<Kitten>} The adopted kitten.

Adopts a kitten, once the paperwork is done.

It's the Markdown you would write by hand, as described in Writing documentation:

• The heading is the call, with options in brackets: it has a default value, so it's optional.
• The YAML comment holds the page title and the link to the source.
• @experimental becomes a stability indicator.
• The typed list holds each parameter's type and @param description, the properties of options nested under it, and the return value with its @returns description.
• The summary follows, as the entry's description.

Once doc-kit builds it, Promise<Kitten> links to the Kitten page through the type map, and Promise and AbortSignal link to MDN.

Other tags follow the same pattern: @deprecated becomes a Stability: 0 - Deprecated indicator with its message, @example an "Example" section, and {@link} a link to its target. TypeDoc's @remarks and @since aren't rendered, so keep that text in the summary.

Declarations follow doc-kit's conventions too: a class gets a Class: heading, and a property an entry with a Type: item, named after its owner with a lowercase first letter, such as kitten.name. The @doc-kit/typedoc reference lists every tag and declaration the plugin renders.

Point doc-kit at the whole docs/ folder, and at the type map:

export default {
  target: ['html', 'orama-db'],

  global: {
    project: 'Kittens',
    repository: 'you/kittens',
    input: ['docs/**/*.md'],
    output: 'out',
  },

  metadata: {
    typeMap: 'docs/api/type-map.json',
  },
};

• input reads the guides and the reference alike: docs/**/*.md includes docs/api/.
• metadata.typeMap links every type annotation naming one of your types to its page, in the reference and in your guides.
• repository (owner/name) turns the source links into links to your files on GitHub.

The type map's paths are relative to the folder your input glob starts from, here docs/:

{
  "Kitten": "api/interfaces/Kitten"
}

These paths have no extension, so type links need a host that serves /api/interfaces/Kitten from Kitten.html, as GitHub Pages, Netlify and Cloudflare do, and Vercel with cleanUrls. See Page URLs.

If the reference sits deeper, such as in docs/reference/api/, set the plugin's docKitBasePath option to 'reference/api' so the paths still match.

In your guides, link to reference pages by their file, and name your types in braces, as you would anywhere else:

# Kittens

Call [`adopt()`](./api/functions/adopt.md) to bring home a {Kitten}.

Run TypeDoc before each build, for example from a script in your package.json:

{
  "scripts": {
    "docs": "typedoc && doc-kit generate"
  }
}

npm run docs then builds the site into out/; preview it as in Getting started.

Without navigation.sidebar, the site's sidebar lists every page in one "API Documentation" group. pages.json gives you what you need to build your own: the name, kind, URL and category of each reference page.

[
  { "name": "Kitten", "kind": "Interface", "url": "/api/interfaces/Kitten" },
  { "name": "adopt", "kind": "Function", "url": "/api/functions/adopt" }
]

TypeDoc categorizes the exports of each module and namespace separately: once one of them has a @category, TypeDoc files the others under "Other" (its defaultCategory option). When none has one, their pages have no category, as above.

Read the page list in your configuration, and turn it into sidebar groups. This one makes a group per category, next to your guides:

import { readFileSync } from 'node:fs';

const pages = JSON.parse(
  readFileSync(new URL('./docs/api/pages.json', import.meta.url), 'utf8')
);

// A group per category, and "Other" for the pages without one
const categories = Object.groupBy(pages, ({ category }) => category ?? 'Other');

export default {
  // ...

  html: {
    navigation: {
      sidebar: [
        {
          groupName: 'Guides',
          items: [{ label: 'Introduction', link: '/index' }],
        },
        ...Object.entries(categories).map(([groupName, entries]) => ({
          groupName,
          items: entries.map(({ name, url }) => ({
            label: `\`${name}\``,
            link: url,
          })),
        })),
      ],
    },
  },
};

The configuration reads pages.json when it loads, so run TypeDoc first. Customizing the site covers the rest of the navigation.

TypeDoc reads JavaScript too, taking the types from its JSDoc comments, once TypeScript is allowed to: set allowJs (or checkJs) in your tsconfig.json, and point entryPoints at your JavaScript, such as src/index.js.

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "allowJs": true
  },
  "include": ["src"]
}

The types then come from the JSDoc tags:

/**
 * Adopts a kitten, once the paperwork is done.
 *
 * @param {string} name The kitten's name.
 * @param {object} [options] How to adopt it.
 * @param {string} [options.color] Coat color.
 * @param {AbortSignal} [options.signal] Cancels the adoption.
 * @returns {Promise<{ name: string }>} The adopted kitten.
 * @experimental
 */
export async function adopt(name, options = {}) {
  return { name };
}

This gives the same page as the TypeScript version, apart from the return type, which reads as written: {Promise<{ name: string }>}. A @typedef of an object type gets a page of its own, as an interface would.

The @doc-kit/typedoc reference lists the plugin's other options: docKitMemberPages gives each member of a large options type a page of its own, docKitReceivers changes the name members are documented on, and docKitUrlAdapter keeps the URLs of an earlier site working. To shape the rest of the site, continue with Customizing the site.