Quick start
Set up your environment and make your first contribution in minutes.
Site architecture
Understand how the docs platform is structured — content, data, and source.
Writing content
Learn the content model, frontmatter, Liquid templating, and versioning.
Site engineering
Explore the Next.js/Express server, REST pipeline, search, and data systems.
Get started contributing
Set up your local environment
Clone the repository, install Node.js dependencies, and build the site. See Local setup for full instructions.
Understand the content model
All documentation lives in Markdown files under
content/. Learn about frontmatter, versioning, and Liquid helpers.Make your changes
Edit or add Markdown files, run the linter with
npm run lint-content, and preview your changes locally at localhost:4000.Open a pull request
Submit your changes following the contribution guidelines. Changes deploy to production within 24 hours of merge.
Key features
Multi-version docs
Content is versioned across GitHub.com, GitHub Enterprise Server, and GitHub Enterprise Cloud using Liquid conditionals.
Automated API docs
REST, GraphQL, and Webhook reference docs are auto-generated from OpenAPI specs via automated pipelines.
Full-text search
Elasticsearch-powered search indexes all docs content and is available in multiple languages.
Content linting
Custom markdownlint rules enforce style, structure, and quality across all documentation.
Liquid templating
Use Liquid tags for versioning, reusables, variables, tool switching, and platform targeting.
Internationalization
Docs are translated into multiple languages through an automated workflow with professional translators.
Two ways to contribute
- Content contributions
- Codespaces
Content contributions are the most common way to help. You can edit
.md files in the /content directory and select /data sections (reusables and variables) directly on GitHub or via a local clone.Accepted content contributions:- Fix typos and grammatical errors
- Improve clarity or accuracy of existing articles
- Add missing information to existing topics
- Update outdated content
The
docs repository accepts contributions to content files only. Infrastructure, workflows, and site-building code changes should go to docs-internal.