Docolab

Docolab is a local docs harness for Markdown, Mermaid diagrams, links, backlinks, and AI-assisted documentation loops.

Point it at a docs folder and it builds a wiki-style interface with folder navigation, rendered documents, diagrams, links out, backlinks, and broken-link hints.

Install

npm install -g docolab

Quick Start

From the root of a project with a docs folder:

docolab dev

Docolab starts a local server through portless, opens your browser, and serves the docs at:

https://docs.localhost

To use a different docs folder:

docolab dev ./product-docs

Setup

Create a config file:

docolab init

This writes docolab.yml:

docs:
  root: docs
  include:
    - "**/*.md"
    - "**/*.mdx"

portless:
  enabled: true
  prefix: docs
  args: []

open: true

Change portless.prefix to choose the stable local hostname:

portless:
  prefix: product

Then:

docolab dev
# https://product.localhost

What Docolab Understands

Docolab works with plain Markdown by default. Frontmatter is optional.

---
id: auth.login-oauth
title: OAuth Login
type: user-flow
status: draft
summary: Native OAuth sign-in and bootstrap routing.
diagram: ./diagrams/login-oauth.mmd
related:
  - auth.token-refresh
---

# OAuth Login

See [Token Refresh](./token-refresh.md) and [[auth.link-phone]].

Supported relationship sources:

• Markdown links like [Token Refresh](./token-refresh.md)
• Wiki links like [[auth.link-phone]]
• Frontmatter related
• Frontmatter diagram
• Mermaid click links in embedded Mermaid blocks or external .mmd files

AI Editing Loop

The intended workflow is file-based:

1. Run docolab dev.
2. Ask an agent to update a focused Markdown file.
3. Ask it to keep linked Mermaid diagrams and references consistent.
4. Inspect the live harness.
5. Continue the conversation.

No AGENTS.md or CLAUDE.md is required. If your project has either file, agents can use it as additional local context for documentation conventions.

Publishing

This repository is configured for npm trusted publishing via GitHub Actions.

The publish workflow is .github/workflows/publish.yml and runs on tags matching v*.

On npmjs.com, configure the package trusted publisher with:

• Provider: GitHub Actions
• Organization/user: derekurban
• Repository: docolab
• Workflow filename: publish.yml

npm trusted publishing requires Node 22.14.0 or newer and npm CLI 11.5.1 or newer in CI. The workflow uses Node 24.