graphql-engine/docs/CONTRIBUTING.md

Contributing

Hasura GraphQL engine docs are built using Sphinx. Sphinx files are written using the RST markup language.

Docs issues in the repo

Issues in the repo for documentation are labelled as c/docs (see list). Issues also labelled as good first issue are aimed at those making their first contribution to the repo (see list). Issues also marked as help wanted (see list) are those that require community contributions on priority.

Please note that some of these issues, labelled with both c/docs and c/console/c/server, are part of a change/task that requires modifications in some component of GraphQL Engine and the docs.

Feel free to open pull requests to address these issues or to add/fix docs features/content, even if a corresponding issue doesn't exist. If you are unsure about whether to go ahead and work on something like the latter, please get in touch with the maintainers in the GraphQL Engine->contrib channel in the community Discord.

Requirements

• Python 3
• Pip for Python 3

Steps

• Fork the repo and clone it:

  git clone https://github.com/<your-username>/graphql-engine
  

• Move to the docs folder via the command line and checkout to a new branch:

  cd docs
  git checkout -b <new-branch-name>
  

• Install dependencies:

  pip3 install -r requirements.txt
  

• For development, live reload and auto build while you're editing and saving files:

  make livehtml
  

• Make the required changes.
• (Optional) Build docs to produce HTML files and verify:

  ENV=<development|production> make html-images
  

  • The generated docs are in _build/html.

  • View the built files by running a webserver:

    cd _build/html && http-server
    

    or

    cd _build/html && python3 -m http.server 8080
    

• Commit the changes. Follow the common guidelines for commit messages at the main contributing guide.
• Push the changes to your fork and submit a pull request.

Some guidelines while modifying docs

• Just before committing your changes, delete your local _build folder completely and then build docs again. Scan the output and look for any Warnings (e.g. title underline too short, Could not lex literal block, etc.). Ideally there should not be any Warnings that are being thrown.
• Keep heading underlining the same length as the heading. It's just aesthetically nice. (Short underlines will even throw a Warning)
• Page titles should be self sufficient. Don't expect the user to have context of the hierarchy of the page in the docs tree. A user can land on a page via search as well. e.g. Say you are adding a new deployment guide for AWS under Guides -> Deployment -> AWS. The title of this page should not be just AWS but instead AWS deployment guide for Hasura GraphQL engine. It's fine to alias it to just AWS in the sidebar as there the user has the context of the page hierarchy.
• Ensure every new added page has a Table of contents section with the right depth. You can see any existing page for reference on how to do this.
• Before adding an image to docs, first compress it via some tool to ensure users won't have to unnecessarily download more data than needed. You can use www.tinypng.com for this. Sometimes you can compress images by upto 75% without losing any visible quality.
• Use the thumbnail directive for images if you want to allow click to zoom.
• Add appropriate cross-links in content to assist users. i.e. if you refer to some functionality that is documented in some other docs page, add a link to that page. e.g. if you have a statement like "create a relationship between tables X and Y ...", make "create a relationship" a link to the Create relationships page.
• Try to commit logically separate changes into different commits. i.e. if you need to update the .gitignore file for some reason and also have other normal docs changes, commit the gitignore change separately for better visibility. Ideally each commit should perform just one specific function. e.g. add xyz deployment guide, update gitignore, fix broken link, etc.

Notes:

• Docs are currently deployed manually. Changes will not reflect immediately after a PR gets merged.
• The search is powered by Algolia and is updated everyday. Your local changes will not be reflected in search results.