Building Documentation Sites with Docusaurus

You need a documentation site for your library, framework, or SaaS product. You want it static, fast, and maintainable without building everything from scratch. Docusaurus v3 handles this well—it’s a mature React-based static site generator that ships with versioning, search integration, and MDX support out of the box.

This guide covers the architecture and practical setup of a Docusaurus documentation site, focusing on concepts that remain stable across minor releases.

Core Architecture of a Docusaurus Documentation Site

Docusaurus organizes content into three distinct content types:

Docs live in the /docs directory. These are your primary documentation pages, rendered with automatic sidebar navigation and versioning support. Each Markdown or MDX file becomes a page.

Blog posts go in /blog. These work well for changelogs, release announcements, or tutorials that are time-sensitive.

Pages in /src/pages are standalone React components or MDX files for custom landing pages, about sections, or anything outside the docs/blog structure.

The sidebar and versioning model deserves attention. Docusaurus auto-generates sidebars from your folder structure, or you can define them explicitly in sidebars.js. When you cut a version, it snapshots your current docs into versioned_docs/, letting users access documentation for older releases.

Docusaurus v3 Setup: Getting Started

Modern scaffolding supports npm, Yarn, pnpm, and Bun. Pick whichever your team uses:

npx create-docusaurus@latest my-docs classic

The classic preset bundles the docs plugin, blog plugin, and default theme—enough for most developer documentation sites. Docusaurus v3 requires Node.js 20 or later for local development and CI.

After scaffolding, your project structure looks like this:

my-docs/
├── docs/
├── blog/
├── src/
│   ├── components/
│   ├── css/
│   └── pages/
├── static/
├── docusaurus.config.js
└── sidebars.js

The docusaurus.config.js file controls site metadata, theme configuration, navbar, footer, and plugin options. This single file handles most customization without touching React code.

MDX Documentation: Writing Content

Docusaurus v3 uses MDX v3, which is stricter than earlier versions. This matters if you’re migrating from v2—MDX v3 enforces proper JSX syntax and won’t silently ignore malformed components.

Each doc file supports frontmatter for metadata:

---
id: getting-started
title: Getting Started
sidebar_position: 1
---

# Getting Started

Your content here. You can import React components directly.

You can embed React components, use Mermaid diagrams, and include interactive code blocks. The @site alias points to your project root for imports.

For diagrams, enable the Mermaid plugin in your config:

// docusaurus.config.js
module.exports = {
  markdown: {
    mermaid: true,
  },
  themes: ['@docusaurus/theme-mermaid'],
}

Theming and Customization

The plugin system lets you extend functionality without forking the theme. Common plugins handle analytics, sitemaps, PWA support, and redirects.

For visual customization, override CSS variables in src/css/custom.css. The theme uses Infima under the hood, so you’re adjusting design tokens rather than writing component styles:

:root {
  --ifm-color-primary: #2e8555;
  --ifm-code-font-size: 95%;
}

Deeper customization uses “swizzling”—ejecting theme components to modify them. Run npx docusaurus swizzle to see available components. Swizzle only what you need, as ejected components require manual updates when upgrading Docusaurus.

Search Integration

Most production Docusaurus sites use Algolia DocSearch. Apply for the free program if your docs are public, or self-host the crawler for private documentation.

Configuration lives in themeConfig:

// docusaurus.config.js
module.exports = {
  themeConfig: {
    algolia: {
      appId: 'YOUR_APP_ID',
      apiKey: 'YOUR_SEARCH_API_KEY',
      indexName: 'YOUR_INDEX_NAME',
    },
  },
}

DocSearch v4 also supports Algolia AskAI, which adds optional conversational search on top of the standard search experience and is configured as part of the same Algolia integration.

Deployment

Docusaurus builds to static HTML, CSS, and JavaScript in the /build directory. Any static hosting works: Vercel, Netlify, GitHub Pages, Cloudflare Pages, or your own CDN.

npm run build

The output is a standard static site with no server runtime required. Configure your hosting provider to handle client-side routing by serving index.html for unknown paths.

What to Know for Production

A few practical notes for maintaining a developer documentation site:

• Versioning adds complexity. Only version when users genuinely need access to old docs. Many projects do fine with a single “current” version.
• MDX strictness catches real bugs. If migration from v2 breaks pages, the errors usually point to actual JSX issues worth fixing.
• Build times scale with content. Large sites benefit from incremental builds in CI and caching node_modules.

Conclusion

Docusaurus handles the infrastructure so you can focus on writing good documentation. The React foundation means frontend teams can customize deeply when needed, while the defaults work well enough that many sites ship without touching React code at all. Start with the classic preset, add plugins as requirements emerge, and resist the urge to over-customize before your documentation content is solid.

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