Quick Start

vanilla-press is a lightweight, flexible, and highly customizable static documentation generator.

Build what you need. Use what you want. Control what you ship.

Features

• Purely vanilla, no framework lock-in.
• Lightweight, with a small output size.
• Customizable, with support for custom layouts, styles, and components.
• Flexible, with support for custom runtime features.
• Extensible with dependency management, client entries, and runtime enhancements.

Installation

Shell
npm create vanilla-press@latest vanilla-presscd vanilla-pressnpm installnpm run dev

Build

The build command reads docs/**/*.md, vp/, and assets/, outputs pages to dist/**/*.html following the same directory structure, and emits related CSS files and JS runtime. Site configuration lives in vp/config/runtime.ts, with build-stage data under server and browser runtime data under client.

Shell
npm run server

Shell
npm run dev

Project Structure

• dist/: HTML output directory that can be deployed directly to any static hosting service.
• dist/public/: generated static assets, including CSS, JS, favicon, images…
• assets/: static assets input directory.
• docs/: input directory for Markdown pages only.
• vp/client/: project-owned browser runtime code, modules, and page entries.
• vp/components/: custom components.
• vp/config/: site configuration directory.
• vp/layouts/: custom layouts.

Styling

The runtime uses a responsive layout strategy. CSS media queries switch desktop and compact styles, while JavaScript only binds the interactions needed by the rendered DOM.