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Build Checks
Every clay build checks your docs before it renders them. Problems are reported as warnings under the step that found them:
● Loaded 12 pages from docs · 280ms
│ ▲ clay.yaml: unknown key "navbar.lgo" is ignored (typo?)
│ ▲ Broken link in guides/setup.md: "instal.md" points to a missing page (/guides/instal)#What is checked
| Check | Example warning |
|---|---|
| Links to pages that do not exist | Broken link in guides/setup.md: "instal.md" points to a missing page (/guides/instal) |
| Images and files that do not exist | Broken link in index.md: "img/logo.png" points to a missing file |
Unknown settings in clay.yaml |
clay.yaml: unknown key "navbar.lgo" is ignored (typo?) |
| Files and settings from Clay 2 | dir-meta.yaml is no longer read since Clay 3; give each folder an index.md with its title, icon and order |
| A missing site title | clay.yaml: "title" is not set |
| Settings from Clay 1 | clay.yaml: "langs" is no longer needed and is ignored |
| Translations without an original | setup.de.md: translates setup.md, which does not exist; the file is skipped |
| Unusable language codes | clay.yaml: "Deutsch" is not a language code like "en" or "pt-BR"; it is ignored |
| Unusable or clashing versions | docs-archive/1.x: docs/1.x has the same URL as this version; rename one of them |
| Missing git history | the docs are not in a git repository: last-updated dates are skipped |
Links to other websites and #anchors are not checked.
#--strict
With --strict, warnings fail the build. Use it in CI: a typo in a link then stops the deployment instead of reaching your readers.
✖ Loading docs
│ ▲ Broken link in guides/setup.md: "instal.md" points to a missing page (/guides/instal)
│ clay build --strict: 1 problem(s) found, see the warnings above
│
└ Build failed after 290ms. Run "clay build --verbose" for the full output.Missing git history is the one warning that never fails a build: it only means the pages show no dates.
#When a build fails
Some problems stop every build, strict or not, for example a page that cannot be rendered. Clay marks the step that failed and shows the cause:
✖ Prerendering pages
│ ├─ /guides/old-page (3ms)
│ │ ├── [404] Page Not Found
│ │ └── Linked from /guides
│ Exiting due to prerender errors.Here a page links to an address that does not exist, in a way the link check could not see, for example in raw HTML. Fix the link and build again.
For the complete output of the underlying build tools, run:
Tip
Run npx clay build --strict locally before you push. It takes a few seconds and catches the same problems CI would.