Velu

A modern documentation site generator. Write Markdown, configure with JSON, ship a beautiful docs site.

Requirements

• Node.js 20.9+
• npm

Install

npm install -g @aravindc26/velu

Quick Start

mkdir my-docs && cd my-docs
velu init
velu run

Your site is live at http://localhost:4321.

velu init scaffolds a complete example project with velu.json, sample pages, tabs, and groups — ready to customize.

CLI Commands

| Command | Description | | -------------------- | ------------------------------------------------ | | velu init | Scaffold a new docs project with example files | | velu lint | Validate velu.json and check referenced pages | | velu run | Build and start the dev server (default port 4321)| | velu run --port N | Start on a custom port | | velu build | Build the site without starting a server |

velu build outputs a static site at .velu-out/out.

Navigation

Velu supports three levels of navigation hierarchy:

Tabs

Top-level horizontal navigation rendered in the header.

{
  "tab": "SDKs",
  "pages": ["sdk/fetch", "sdk/create"]
}

External link tabs:

{
  "tab": "Blog",
  "href": "https://blog.example.com"
}

Groups

Collapsible sidebar groups containing pages or nested groups.

{
  "group": "Getting Started",
  "pages": ["quickstart", "installation"]
}

Pages

Reference markdown files by their path relative to the docs directory, without the .md extension:

"quickstart"           → quickstart.md
"guides/installation"  → guides/installation.md

File Watching

During velu run, changes to .md files and velu.json in the docs directory are automatically synced and hot-reloaded — no restart needed.

License

MIT