Gravwell Wiki

Current version of Gravwell documentation can always be found at http://docs.gravwell.io This repo is served up at that url and can be cloned for offline use.

There is a shell.nix provided in the repo. To install Nix, visit https://nixos.org/download.html Once nix is installed, just run nix-shell in the wiki root directory.

Inside of the nix-shell:

• build the documentation by running make html
• view changes as you edit by running make livehtml and visit http://127.0.0.1:8000

Deploying

Paths

In order for the version switcher to work properly, the paths where we serve the docs have to have the following structure:

• Docs for latest release are at /
  • Ends up being the target for old links, so old links continue to work as they always have
• Docs for previous releases are at /vN.N.N/

For example, if we're publishing v5.4.5, v5.4.4, and v5.4.3...

• https://docs.gravwell.io is v5.4.5
• https://docs.gravwell.io/v5.4.4/ is v5.4.4
• https://docs.gravwell.io/v5.4.3/ is v5.4.3

Directory structure

Assume we're using a web server to serve a directory as docs.gravwell.io.

If we wanted to serve v5.4.5, v5.4.4, and v5.4.3 as shown above, we could structure the directory like this:

docs/     <- the full build of v5.4.5. Serve this directory as `/`
├─ 404.html
├─ index.html
├─ ...
├─ v5.4.4/   <- the full build of v5.4.4
│  ├─ 404.html
│  ├─ index.html
│  ├─ ...
├─ v5.4.3/   <- the full build of v5.4.3
│  ├─ 404.html
│  ├─ index.html
│  ├─ ...

Builds of previous versions in are nested within the latest version, so we end up with the paths we want.

Links would also work:

docs/
├─ latest/      <- a link to v5.4.5. Serve this directory as `/`
│  ├─ v5.4.4/   <- a link to v5.4.4
│  ├─ v5.4.3/   <- a link to v5.4.3
│  ├─ ...
├─ v5.4.5/   <- the full build of v5.4.5
│  ├─ 404.html
│  ├─ index.html
│  ├─ ...
├─ v5.4.4/   <- the full build of v5.4.4
│  ├─ 404.html
│  ├─ index.html
│  ├─ ...
├─ v5.4.3/   <- the full build of v5.4.3
│  ├─ 404.html
│  ├─ index.html
│  ├─ ...

versions.json

https://docs.gravwell.io/_static/verions.json dictates how the version selector will behave in all docs versions, past and current.

As implied by the path, only the versions.json that's included in the latest docs version needs to be up-to-date. It doesn't matter if any .../vN.N.N/_static/versions.json is out of date. Only the file at /_static/verions.json is used.

The PyData Sphinx Theme docs explain the options in more detail, but here's a quick summary / example:

[
  {
    // An optional special name to show in the selector
    name: "v5.4.5 (latest)",

    // The version. Should match `release` in `conf.py`
    version: "v5.4.5",

    // The path where one will be able to find this release (root path for latest)
    url: "https://docs.gravwell.io/",

    // Set to true if this is the latest version.
    // If set to false or omited, an "Old Version" warning banner will show on that version.
    // Only one entry in the versions array may have preferred set to true.
    preferred: true,
  },

  {
    // Since "name" is missing, the selector will just show "v5.4.4"
    version: "v5.4.4",
    url: "https://docs.gravwell.io/v5.4.4/",
    //  Since preferred is omitted, the "Old Version" warning banner will show for v5.4.4
  },

  {
    // Since "name" is missing, the selector will just show "v5.4.3"
    version: "v5.4.3",
    url: "https://docs.gravwell.io/v5.4.3/",
    //  Since preferred is omitted, the "Old Version" warning banner will show for v5.4.3
  },
];

When updating version.json...

• push a new entry in the front of the array
  • Ensure name and preferred are set as necessary
• unset preferred and name for the entry that's now at index 1
• remove old releases from the end as necessary (see below)

Removing old releases

As verions accumulate, we may decide to stop hosting old versions. This requires:

1. Updating _static/versions.json hosted at https://docs.gravwell.io/_static/versions.json, so that it contains only those versions we want to continue hosting
2. Removing old versions from the web server

Adding Sphinx Extensions

Adding a Sphinx extension requires two steps:

• Add relevant Python package(s) to the nix shell
• Add the extension to conf.py

Once the pacakges are installed and listed in conf.py, the extension will ready for use.

Example adding sphinx-copybutton

Adding sphinx-copybutton to nix shell

1. Let's check if the extension is already available in nixpkgs by visiting https://search.nixos.org/packages and searching for sphinx-copybutton
   • If it's available, note the attribute path: nixpkgs.python310Packages.sphinx-copybutton
   • If it's not available, consult the nix docs for packaging python libs. We package not-found-extension ourselves in package.nix. That's a good starting point.
2. Because sphinx-copybutton is in nixpkgs, we can just add it to packages.nix in the pythonBundle.
3. Exit (if necessary) then re-enter the nix shell with nix-shell

Adding sphinx-copybutton to conf.py

1. Consult the docs. Looks like copy button just requires adding "sphinx_copybutton" to the list of extensions in conf.py.
2. Run black conf.py to format the file