Documentation site architecture

Learn how we build and architecture gitlab-docs and deploy it to https://docs.gitlab.com.

Repository

While the source of the documentation content is stored in GitLab's respective product repositories, the source that is used to build the documentation site from that content is located at https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-docs.

The following diagram illustrates the relationship between the repositories from where content is sourced, the gitlab-docs project, and the published output.

  graph LR
    A[gitlab-ce/doc]
    B[gitlab-ee/doc]
    C[gitlab-runner/docs]
    D[omnibus-gitlab/doc]
    E[charts/doc]
    F[gitlab-docs]
    A --> F
    B --> F
    C --> F
    D --> F
    E --> F
    F -- Build pipeline --> G
    G[docs.gitlab.com]
    H[/ce/]
    I[/ee/]
    J[/runner/]
    K[/omnibus/]
    L[/charts/]
    G --> H
    G --> I
    G --> J
    G --> K
    G --> L

See the README there for detailed information.

Assets

To provide an optimized site structure, design, and a search-engine friendly website, along with a discoverable documentation, we use a few assets for the GitLab Documentation website.

Libraries

• Bootstrap 4.3.1 components
• Bootstrap 4.3.1 JS
• jQuery 3.3.1
• Clipboard JS
• Font Awesome 4.7.0

SEO

• Schema.org
• Google Analytics
• Google Tag Manager

Global nav

To understand how the global nav (left sidebar) is built, please read through the global navigation doc.

Deployment

The docs site is deployed to production with GitLab Pages, and previewed in merge requests with Review Apps.

The deployment aspects will be soon transferred from the original document to this page.