tsdocs-builder

Generate beautiful Markdown documentation from TypeScript source code — with zero configuration.

tsdocs-builder parses your TypeScript files using ts-morph, extracts JSDoc comments, and emits clean Markdown docs with a ready-to-use sidebar for your documentation framework.

Features

• TypeScript-first — Understands interfaces, types, classes, enums, functions, and constants
• JSDoc extraction — Pulls summaries, descriptions, @param, @returns, @example, @deprecated, @internal, @ignore, and custom tags
• Multi-framework sidebar — Generates sidebar config for Docusaurus, Mintlify, Fumadocs, VitePress, or Neutrino
• Type linking — Automatically links types across your codebase
• Module grouping — Organizes exports by file and submodule directory
• Config file — Load options from a JSON config file; CLI flags override config values
• Dry-run preview — Preview what would be generated without writing any files
• Path exclusion — Skip specific folders or files with glob patterns
• Missing docs flag — Flag exports without JSDoc documentation
• CLI or library — Use it as a command-line tool or import it as a TypeScript module
• Bun-native — Built for Bun, works with Node 18+

Quick Start

# Install
npm install -g tsdocs-builder
# or: bun add -g tsdocs-builder

# Run
tsdocs --input ./src --output ./docs

That's it. Your documentation is in ./docs.

Installation

npm (global)

npm install -g tsdocs-builder

npm (local)

npm install tsdocs-builder
npx tsdocs --input ./src --output ./docs

Bun

bun add tsdocs-builder
bun run tsdocs --input ./src --output ./docs

From source

git clone https://github.com/Bravo68Web/tsdocs-builder.git
cd tsdocs-builder
bun install
bun run build
./bin/tsdocs --input ./src --output ./docs

Usage

tsdocs --input ./src --output ./docs [options]

Basic examples

# Default: Docusaurus sidebar
tsdocs --input ./src --output ./docs

# Short flags
tsdocs -i ./src -o ./docs

# Positional arguments (input first, output second)
tsdocs ./src ./docs

# Mintlify sidebar
tsdocs --input ./src --output ./docs --sidebarStyle mintlify

# Skip private members
tsdocs --input ./src --output ./docs --skipPrivate

# Preview what would be generated
tsdocs --input ./src --output ./docs --dryrun

# Skip specific folders
tsdocs --input ./src --output ./docs --ignorePaths "hooks/,tests/"

# Use config file
tsdocs --config ./tsdocs.config.json

Config file

Create a tsdocs.config.json to save your preferred options:

{
 "input": "./src",
 "output": "./docs",
 "baseName": "my-library",
 "skipPrivate": true,
 "skipInternal": true,
 "sidebar": true,
 "sidebarStyle": "docusaurus"
}

Then run with tsdocs --config ./tsdocs.config.json. CLI flags override config values.

CLI Options

| Flag | Short | Default | Description | |------|-------|---------|-------------| | --input <path> | -i | — | Required. Path to TypeScript source files | | --output <path> | -o | — | Required. Output directory for docs | | --baseName <name> | -b | Module name | Base path prefix in sidebar links | | --include <glob>[,<glob>] | — | **/*.ts, **/*.tsx | File patterns to include | | --exclude <glob>[,<glob>] | — | **/*.d.ts, **/*.spec.ts, **/*.test.ts, **/node_modules/** | File patterns to exclude | | --skipPrivate | — | true | Omit private (#) members from docs | | --no-skipPrivate | — | — | Include private members | | --skipDeprecated | — | false | Omit @deprecated members | | --skipInternal | — | false | Omit @internal members | | --ignoreSources | — | false | Skip source location links | | --sidebar | — | true | Generate sidebar config file | | --no-sidebar | — | — | Skip sidebar generation | | --sidebarStyle <style> | — | docusaurus | Sidebar style: docusaurus, mintlify, fumadocs, vitepress, neutrino | | --groupBy <mode> | — | kind | Group exports by: kind, folder | | --sortBy <mode> | — | alphabetical | Sort by: alphabetical, source, category | | --treatAsSingleModule | — | false | Do not create subdirectory per folder | | --config <path> | — | — | Path to options JSON file | | --dryrun | — | false | Preview output without writing files | | --ignorePaths <glob> | — | — | Skip files/folders matching glob patterns (hooks/, **/*.test.ts) | | --showMissingRef | — | false | Flag exports missing JSDoc documentation | | --help | -h | — | Show help | | --version | -V | — | Show version |

Supported Doc Frameworks

| Framework | Sidebar File | Notes | |-----------|--------------|-------| | Docusaurus | _sidebar.json | Default. Nested { label, items } structure | | Mintlify | _meta.json | Per-directory. { title, slug } entries | | Fumadocs | sidebar.json | MDX-safe. { title, link, children } | | VitePress | sidebar.json | Flat. { text, link, items } | | Neutrino | navigation.json | Flattened { text, link } array |

Example: Mintlify

tsdocs --input ./src --output ./docs --sidebarStyle mintlify

Outputs:

docs/
├── _meta.json # Root metadata
├── README.md
├── function.md
├── interface.md
├── ...
└── submodule-name/
 ├── _meta.json # Per-directory metadata
 ├── README.md
 └── ...

Programmatic API

import { TsDocsParser, generateDocs } from "tsdocs-builder";
import type { TsDocsOptions, DocModule } from "tsdocs-builder";

// Low-level: parse and get the DocModule
const opts: TsDocsOptions = {
 input: "./src",
 output: "./docs",
 skipPrivate: true,
 sidebarStyle: "docusaurus",
};

const parser = new TsDocsParser(opts);
const module = parser.parse();

// High-level: parse and write all docs
const module = await generateDocs(opts);

Architecture

src/
├── index.ts # CLI entry + public API
├── core/
│ ├── parser.ts # Orchestrates parsing pipeline
│ ├── extractor.ts # Extracts exports from ts-morph
│ └── jsdoc-parser.ts # Parses JSDoc blocks
├── generators/ # Markdown generators per export kind
│ ├── function-generator.ts
│ ├── interface-generator.ts
│ ├── class-generator.ts
│ ├── enum-generator.ts
│ ├── constant-generator.ts
│ ├── module-readme-generator.ts
│ └── navigation-generator.ts
├── adapters/ # Sidebar format adapters
│ ├── types.ts
│ ├── docusaurus.ts
│ ├── mintlify.ts
│ ├── fumadocs.ts
│ ├── vitepress.ts
│ └── neutrino.ts
├── output/
│ ├── markdown-writer.ts
│ └── file-namer.ts
├── types/
│ └── doc-types.ts # Core document types
└── utils/
 ├── path-utils.ts
 └── config-loader.ts

Parsing flow: index.ts → TsDocsParser → extractor.ts → JSDoc parsed per-export → Markdown generated per kind → sidebar serialized per adapter.

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md.

License via MIT Licence