How to build this website

Weaviate uses Docusaurus 3 to build our documentation. Docusaurus is a static website generator that runs under Node.js. We use a Node.js project management tool called yarn to install Docusaurus and to manage project dependencies.

If you do not have Node.js and yarn installed on your system, install them first.

Install Node.js

Use the nvm package manager to install Node.js. The nvm project page provides an installation script.

After you install nvm use it to install Node.js.

nvm install

By default, nvm installs the most recent version of Node.js. Also install the version of Node.js that is specified in .github/workflows/pull_requests.yaml. At the time of writing it is version v22.12.0.

nvm install 22
nvm use 22

Install yarn

Node.js includes the npm package manager. Use npm to install yarn.

npm install --global yarn

Update Dependencies

Once you have a local copy of the repository, you need to install Docusaurus and the other project dependencies.

Switch to the project directory, then use yarn to update the dependencies.

yarn install

You may see some warnings during the installation.

Local Development

This command starts a local development server and opens up a browser window. Most changes are reflected live without having to restart the server.

yarn start

Open http://localhost:3000/ showing the local build. If you close the terminal, the server will stop. Or press Ctrl+C/Cmd+C to stop the server.

Build the Web Site

This command generates static content into the build directory. You can use a hosting service to serve the static content.

yarn build

The build command is useful when you are finished editing. If you ran yarn start to start a local web server, you do not need to use yarn build to see you changes while you are editing.

This command generates static content into the build directory and can be served using any static contents hosting service.