Source file structure

The source files for the Keptn documentation are stored in the same GitHub repository as the source code for the software. This page explains how the documentation source files are organized.

Specifying the doc structure

The documentation builds are controlled by the mkdocs.yml file in the root directory of the Keptn repository. The documentation structure is defined under the nav section. The following snippet illustrates how this is structured:

...
nav:
  - Home:
      - index.md
  - Documentation:
      - docs/index.md
    ...
      - Use Cases:
          - docs/use-cases/index.md
          - Day 2 Operations: docs/use-cases/day-2-operations.md
          - Keptn + HorizontalPodAutoscaler: docs/use-cases/hpa.md
          - Keptn for non-Kubernetes deployments: docs/use-cases/non-k8s.md
   ...

The first level of the nav: section defines the tabs in the header bar of the page.
All nested items define sub-pages and their child pages inside the tabs.
The Documentation item defines the "Documentation" tab.
Each subitem to Documentation is a section of the docs as displayed in the left frame.
Under each section are the individual pages, listed in the order they are displayed in the left frame. Each page line shows the title of the page that will be displayed in the left frame and the path to the source file.

Note that the page title displayed in the main canvas is defined by the value of the H1 header in the page source file. When creating a new page or modifying the title, it is important to ensure that the title in the page source and the title in the mkdocs.yml file match.

Note After adding a new page to the mkdocs.yml file, you must stop and restart your local doc build (make docs-serve) before the new page shows in your local build.

Primary documentation set

The source for the Keptn documentation is stored under the docs/docs directory in the repository.

The subdirectories with content are:

assets: This folder is used to save assets such as code examples that are used throughout the documentation. Many subfolders also contain an assets folder, usually containing graphics files (.png, .jpg, etc) to keep such files closer to the content where they are referenced.
components: Information about how the different subcomponents of Keptn work
contribute: Contains information on how to contribute software, tests, and documentation to Keptn
core-concepts: A brief overview of Keptn, its features and use cases, and its history
getting-started: Hands-on exercises that demonstrate the capabilities of Keptn
guides: Guides and how-to material about using Keptn features
installation: Requirements and instructions for installing and enabling Keptn
migrate: Information to help users who are migrating to Keptn from Keptn v1
reference: Reference pages for the CRDs and APIs that Keptn provides
use-cases: Examples and exercises of using Keptn in specific scenarios

Working with reference pages

The Keptn documentation includes two reference sections that document the Keptn APIs and CRDs. For background information, see:

API Reference

The API Reference pages are autogenerated from source code. This is a comprehensive list of all APIs and resources Keptn uses.

Descriptive text for the APIs is authored in the source code itself. Each operator has its own API with different versions. The source locations are:

The text is coded in a limited form of markdown.

To regenerate the autogenerated API reference docs, execute the following script in the root directory of your lifecycle-toolkit clone:

./.github/scripts/generate-crd-docs/generate-crd-docs.sh

CRD Reference

The CRD Reference pages describe the YAML manifest files used to populate resources for the small set of CRDs that users must populate themselves. These are currently authored manually and should provide as much information as possible about the resource. These are intended to be reference pages that are used regularly by users after they are familiar with how to use Keptn. For new users, the Guides provide introductory material about how to use various features of Keptn.

A template to create a new CRD Reference page is available here.

Contribution guide

The source for the Contributing to Keptn guides (which are accessed from the Contributing tab on the documentation page) is stored under the docs/contribute directory.

The subdirectories of the contribution guide are:

general (General information): Information that is applicable to all contributors, whether contributing software or documentation
software (Software contributions): Information that is specific to software contributions
docs (Documentation contributions): Information that is specific to documentation contributions

We also have CONTRIBUTING.md files located in the home directory of the lifecycle-toolkit repository (general and software development information) and in the lifecycle-toolkit/docs directory (documentation development information only). These are the traditional locations for contributing information but the amount of content we have was making them unwieldy, so we are in the process of moving most content from these files into the Contributing guide, leaving links to the various sections in the CONTRIBUTING.md guides.

Build strategy

This section discusses how the individual files and directories are assembled into the documentation set. See Published Doc Structure for information about the branches where the documentation is published.

The order in which the files are displayed is determined by their order in the nav field of the mkdocs.yml file.

Subdirectory structure

Each subdirectory contains topical subdirectories for each chapter in that section. Each topical subdirectory may contain:

An index.md file that has the text for the section. If this is a subdirectory that contains subdirectories for other pages, the index.md file contains introductory content for the section.
An assets subdirectory where graphical files for that topic are stored. No assets subdirectory is present if the topic has no graphics.