bob-docs

A lightweight documentation viewer for browsing and rendering markdown, JSON, CSV, and Mermaid diagram files. Run it in any project to instantly browse your docs in the browser with live-reload.

Features

• Markdown rendering with syntax highlighting and embedded Mermaid diagrams
• JSON viewer with formatted and raw views
• CSV viewer with table display
• Mermaid diagram rendering (.mmd files — sequence, class, flowchart)
• Full-text search across all documentation
• Live-reload when files change
• Responsive design (mobile, tablet, desktop)

Quick Start

npx bob-docs init    # creates .bob-docs.json config
npx bob-docs         # starts the server

Open http://localhost:3000 in your browser.

Installation

# as a dev dependency
npm install --save-dev bob-docs

# or globally
npm install -g bob-docs

Add to your package.json scripts:

{
  "scripts": {
    "docs": "bob-docs"
  }
}

Configuration

Create a .bob-docs.json in your project root (or run bob-docs init):

{
  "docsPath": "./docs",
  "port": 3000,
  "host": "0.0.0.0"
}

| Option | Type | Default | Description | |--------|------|---------|-------------| | docsPath | string | ./docs | Path to documentation folder (relative or absolute) | | port | number | 3000 | Server port (1–65535) | | host | string | 0.0.0.0 | Host to bind to (localhost for local-only, 0.0.0.0 for network access) |

CLI arguments override config file settings:

bob-docs --docs-path ./documentation --port 8080 --host localhost

Supported File Types

| Extension | Rendering | |-----------|-----------| | .md | GitHub-flavored markdown with syntax highlighting | | .json | Formatted + raw view | | .csv | Table + raw view | | .mmd | Mermaid diagram (sequence, class, flowchart) | | .txt | Raw text |

Development

git clone https://github.com/wesen81/bob-docs.git
cd bob-docs
bun install
bun run dev

License

MIT