Clay Documentation

Turn a folder of Markdown files into a fast, searchable documentation website. Everything you need to write, organize and publish docs with Clay.

On this page

Clay turns a folder of Markdown files into a documentation website: a sidebar from your folders, full-text search, code highlighting, light and dark themes, versions and translations. You write the pages; Clay does the rest.

#Start in a minute

npm init -y
npm install --save-dev clay-doc
echo 'title: "My Project"' > clay.yaml
mkdir docs && echo '# Hello, Clay' > docs/index.md
npx clay dev

Open http://localhost:3000, and every change you save shows up right away. The quick start takes it from there.

#Why Clay

Markdown in, website out. Pages are Markdown files in docs/, folders become the navigation. No templates, no theme to build.
Search built in. Every page and section is searchable, typos and all, with Ctrl + K or ⌘ + K.
Fast anywhere. Every page is pre-rendered to HTML. Host it on GitHub Pages, Netlify or any web server.
Checked on every build. Broken links and unknown settings are reported, and --strict stops a deploy that has them.
Versions and languages. Keep the docs of older releases online and translate page by page.
Organized in the terminal. clay edit creates, orders, renames and translates pages without touching front matter by hand.

#Find your way

I want to …	Start with
See what Clay is and how a site comes together	Introduction
Build a first site, step by step	Quick Start
Write pages with code, alerts, links and images	Writing
Arrange pages and folders	Organizing
Look up a setting	Configuration
Put the site online	Deployment
Move a Clay 2 site to Clay 3	Upgrading to Clay 3

Tip

This website is a Clay site. Every page is a Markdown file in the example repository: see how it is made, or copy it as a starting point.

#Start in a minute

#Why Clay

#Find your way

In this section