Writers' Toolkit Build and review Test documentation changes

Test documentation changes

Every project keeps technical documentation in the docs/sources directory. Additionally, every project uses GNU Make to perform tasks related to technical documentation. To learn more about GNU Make, refer to GNU Make Manual.

To see a list of targets and their descriptions, run make from the docs/ directory. The output is similar to the following:

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Usage:
  make <target>

Targets:
  help             Display this help.
  docs-rm          Remove the docs container.
  docs-pull        Pull documentation base image.
  make-docs        Fetch the latest make-docs script.
  docs             Serve documentation locally, which includes pulling the latest `DOCS_IMAGE` (default: `grafana/docs-base:latest`) container image. See also `docs-no-pull`.
  docs-no-pull     Serve documentation locally without pulling the `DOCS_IMAGE` (default: `grafana/docs-base:latest`) container image.
  docs-debug       Run Hugo web server with debugging enabled. TODO: support all SERVER_FLAGS defined in website Makefile.
  doc-validator    Run doc-validator on the entire docs folder.
  vale             Run vale on the entire docs folder.
  update           Fetch the latest version of this Makefile and the `make-docs` script from Writers' Toolkit.

To run the local documentation webserver with the default configuration, run make docs from the docs/ directory.

Run with specific projects

Each project has a list of projects to build by default when running make docs that is defined by the PROJECTS variable in docs/variables.mk. To override the default for a single invocation, provide the PROJECTS argument to make docs which is the name of the project as it appears in the website URL path.

For example:

• For Grafana, the PROJECT is grafana derived the URL https://grafana.com/docs/grafana/.
• For Grafana Cloud, the PROJECT is grafana-cloud derived from the URL https://grafana.com/docs/grafana-cloud/.

To specifically build only the Grafana documentation:

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make docs PROJECTS='grafana'

To specifically build Grafana and Grafana Cloud documentation:

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make docs PROJECTS='grafana grafana-cloud'

Let’s say that you have forked the main project repository, so your local working directory name doesn’t match the project name. You can use the PROJECTS option to define the local cloned repository (see the Arguments section below).

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make docs PROJECTS="tempo::tempo-doc-work"

The format is <PROJECT>[:VERSION[:REPOSITORY[:DIR]]]. The example mounts the PROJECT tempo, at the default VERSION latest, using the REPOSITORY tempo-doc-work, and the default DIR docs/sources. This example builds the Tempo documentation from the local working directory, tempo-doc-work, instead of the standard tempo directory.

Understand Hugo output from make docs

When you run make docs, Hugo (our static site generator) processes the Markdown files and outputs warnings and error messages.

These messages are in the following format:

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WARN <DATE> <TIME> <LANGUAGE> REF_NOT_FOUND: Ref <RELREF ARGUMENT>: “<SOURCE FILE>:<LINE>:<COLUMN>”: <ERROR>

where:

• SOURCE FILE is the file with the broken relref
• RELREF ARGUMENT is the argument to the relref shortcode that is not working.
• ERROR is the reason RELREF ARGUMENT is not working.

When you save a file with an active local build, the page is rechecked. If the error messages is not repeated, then the issue is fixed.

Example: Page not found

Hugo emits REF_NOT_FOUND warnings indicating the filename and location of such references when building the docs, for example with make docs in grafana/grafana or make server-quick in grafana/website:

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WARN 2022/08/04 21:35:37 [en] REF_NOT_FOUND: Ref "../../enterprise": "/hugo/content/docs/grafana/next/administration/roles-and-permissions/access-control/assign-rbac-roles.md:14:47": page not found

In this example,

• Ref "../../enterprise" is the destination of the reference that Hugo can’t resolve
• \/hugo/content/docs/grafana/next/administration/roles-and-permissions/access-control/assign-rbac-roles.md is the document containing the reference, where the path after /next/ is relative to the documentation root of the component repository
• :14 represents the line number containing the unresolved reference
• :47 represents the character in that line where the unresolved reference begins

If the reference’s destination appears to be invalid, for example due to a typo in the reference or the depth of therelref directory, then you should be able to resolve this by correcting the reference target.

For more information about linking, refer to Links.

Example: Rebuild failed due to missing shortcode

In this example, the rebuild fails because the file contribute-documentation/_index.md is missing a closing shortcode for admonition on line 152.

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ERROR Rebuild failed: assemble: "/hugo/content/docs/writers-toolkit/contribute-documentation/_index.md:152:1": failed to extract shortcode: shortcode "admonition" must be closed or self-closed

Reference

The make docs target uses the make-docs script to mount local documentation into the Hugo build. It can also be run separately if special configuration is required.

Examples

The following examples assume:

1. Your working directory is the root of a project repository.
2. You have a copy of the make-docs script in that working directory.
3. The script is executable.
4. You have a checkout of each of the project repositories used in the examples.

Build Mimir, the mimir-distributed Helm chart, and GEM: ./make-docs metrics

Build Loki and GEL: ./make-docs logs

Build Tempo and GET: ./make-docs traces

Build Grafana and Grafana Cloud: ./make-docs grafana grafana-cloud

Build Grafana and Mimir as “next”: ./make-docs grafana:next mimir:next

Mount v9.3.x and “latest” versions of Grafana::

From the grafana repository:

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$ git worktree add v9.3.x origin/v9.3.x
$ export GRAFANA_REPO="$(pwd)"

From the technical-documentation repository:

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$ ./make-docs grafana "grafana:v9.3.x:${GRAFANA_REPO}/v9.3.x"

To remove the worktree created in the grafana repository, run the following command from the grafana repository:

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$ git worktree remove v9.3.x

Arguments

Each argument to the make-docs script is a project to be mounted into the local build. Each argument has four fields separated by colons (:) and optional fields can be omitted.

<PROJECT>[:VERSION[:REPOSITORY[:DIR]]]

• PROJECT: is the name of the project as it appears in the website URL path.

  For Grafana, the PROJECT is grafana (https://grafana.com/docs/grafana/) For Grafana Cloud, the PROJECT is grafana-cloud (https://grafana.com/docs/grafana-cloud/).

  Pseudo projects mount multiple source directories.

  • logs: mounts Loki and GEL directories.
  • metrics: mounts Mimir, the mimir-distributed Helm chart, and GEM directories.
  • traces: mounts Tempo and GET directories.

  Note: pseudo projects do not support the REPOSITORY or DIR fields.

• VERSION: is the name of the version directory under which the project documentation should be mounted.

  The VERSION field is optional and defaults to latest for versioned projects and is empty for other projects.

• REPOSITORY is the the name of the local directory within REPOS_PATH for that project.

  The REPOSITORY field is optional and defaults to the scripts internal mapping of project names to repository names. For most projects, this is the same as the project name.

• The DIR field is the directory path within the repository that is where the source documentation resides.

  The DIR field is optional and defaults to the scripts internal mapping of project names to documentation source directories. For most projects, this is the docs/sources directory.

This example builds the Grafana documentation and the Tempo documentation from the local repository, tempo-doc-work.

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make docs PROJECTS="grafana tempo::tempo-doc-work"

REPOS_PATH

The REPOS_PATH environment variable is a colon-separated list of paths in which to look for project repositories. Only directories within the paths specified in REPOS_PATH are checked for projects.

By default, the script determines the REPOS_PATH to be the parent directory of the grafana/technical-documentation repository. If you keep all repositories in the same directory, you do not need to set REPOS_PATH.

With a directory structure similar to the following tree command:

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$ tree -L 1 -d ~/ext/grafana
/home/jdb/ext/grafana
├── agent
├── grafana
├── loki
├── mimir
├── phlare
├── technical-documentation
├── tempo
├── website
└── writers-toolkit

9 directories

The script sets REPOS_PATH to be /home/jdb/ext/grafana.

DEBUG

The DEBUG environment variable disables output filtering and enables extra debug logging to help with troubleshooting.

If you experience confusing behavior with the make docs procedure, report the problem via a GitHub issue or, for Grafana Labs employees, in the #docs Slack channel and provide the full command and output using make docs DEBUG=true.

Stop running a local build

To stop the make docs command, press Commmand/Ctrl + C.

If this doesn’t work, do one of the following:

• (Recommended) Open Docker Desktop, go to Containers, and stop all running containers or just the one for your local build.
• To remove all running containers, run docker rm -f $(docker ps -q).