CLI Reference

The Verdocs Command Line Interface (CLI) is the primary way to interact with your documentation projects. This page provides a detailed reference for all supported commands and their options.

General Usage

verdocs [COMMAND] [OPTIONS]

To see the help for any command, you can use the --help flag:

verdocs --help
verdocs [COMMAND] --help

Commands

`init`

Initializes a new documentation project by creating a skeleton project structure.

Usage:

verdocs init [PATH]

Arguments:

PATH: The directory where you want to initialize the project (defaults to the current directory .).

What it does:

Creates an assets/ directory.
Creates a search-index/ directory.
Writes a default config.yml file.
Adds a sample verdocs-logo.png to the assets/ folder.
Populates the project with two sample versioned folders: v1.0.0 and v1.1.0.

`generate`

Builds your documentation project into a production-ready static website.

Usage:

verdocs generate [PATH] [OPTIONS]

Arguments:

PATH: The source directory of your documentation project (defaults to .).

Options:

-h, --host <HOST>: Specifies the target hosting platform for optimization. Supported values: vps (default), vercel, gh-pages.

What it does:

Validates the project structure and config.yml.
Parses all Markdown files within versioned folders.
Generates a client-side search index for each version.
Produces a fully static out/ directory containing optimized HTML, CSS, and JS.
Host Optimizations:
- vps: Creates a root index.html redirector.
- vercel: Creates index.html and vercel.json for clean URLs.
- gh-pages: Creates index.html and .nojekyll.

`preview`

Starts a local development server with hot-reloading for real-time documentation previewing.

Usage:

verdocs preview [PATH] [OPTIONS]

Arguments:

PATH: The source directory of your documentation project (defaults to .).

Options:

-p, --port <PORT>: Specifies the port to run the preview server on (defaults to 8080).

What it does:

Performs an initial site generation.
Starts a local server (e.g., http://localhost:8080).
Watches for changes to any Markdown files or the config.yml.
Automatically re-generates the site and triggers a browser refresh when changes are saved.

`clean`

Removes generated build files and configuration to reset the project state.

Usage:

verdocs clean [PATH] [OPTIONS]

Arguments:

PATH: The project directory to clean (defaults to .).

Options:

-f, --full: A destructive flag that removes all versioned directories (v*) in addition to the out/ folder and config.yml.

What it does:

Deletes the out/ directory.
Deletes the config.yml file.
If --full is provided, it also removes every versioned documentation folder found in the root.

`self-update`

Updates Verdocs to the latest version.

Usage:

verdocs self-update

What it does:

Downloads and executes the latest installation script from the official repository.
Replaces the current verdocs binary with the latest version.
Requires sudo if the binary is installed in a protected directory like /usr/local/bin.

`uninstall`

Removes the Verdocs binary and its configuration directory from your system.

Usage:

verdocs uninstall

What it does:

Deletes the ~/.verdocs configuration and analytics directory.
Deletes the verdocs binary from its current installation path.
Requires sudo if the binary is installed in a protected directory.

Global Options

-V, --version: Displays the current version of the Verdocs CLI.
-h, --help: Displays help information for the CLI or a specific subcommand.