Version-Controlled Documentation Inside Your Laravel App with Laradocs

Laradocs is a Laravel package that serves a documentation site from markdown files kept inside your codebase. You write the docs next to the code they describe, commit them together, and Laradocs renders them at /docs with navigation, search-friendly metadata, and a responsive UI.

• Multi-level file structure — nested folders become nested navigation.
• Filename or metadata routing — slug: front-matter overrides paths.
• Markdown → HTML powered by CommonMark (GFM, tables, footnotes, …).
• Rich per-file metadata — title, description, order, hidden, group, badge, redirect, tags, and more.
• Polished default UI — responsive, dark-mode, sidebar, breadcrumbs, on-page table of contents, prev/next — all publishable and overridable.
• Smart caching — rendered HTML cached and auto-invalidated on file change.
• And more

#Folder Structure Becomes Navigation

Laradocs builds its sidebar from your directory layout. Nested folders turn into sections, and an _index.md file acts as a section’s landing page. Routing follows the filenames by default, but you can override a path with a slug field in front-matter when you want a URL that differs from the file location.

Scaffold a new page with the generator command:

php artisan make:doc guide/getting-started --title="Getting Started" --order=1

#Front-Matter Metadata

Each page carries metadata in YAML front-matter that controls how it appears in navigation and search:

---
title: Getting Started
description: Install and configure the app.
order: 1
group: Basics
---

Supported fields include title, description, order, hidden, group, badge, redirect, tags, and slug. Markdown is processed through CommonMark with GitHub-flavored markdown, tables, and footnotes, plus callout blocks using the familiar GitHub syntax:

> [!TIP]
> Folders become sidebar sections; `_index.md` is a section's landing page.

#Variables and Macros for Reuse

To avoid repeating values across pages, Laradocs lets you register shared variables and reusable macro blocks from a service provider. Variables interpolate into markdown with {{ value }} syntax, and macros render with an @docs() block:

use PeteBishwhipLaradocsFacadesLaradocs;
 
Laradocs::variables(fn () => ['version' => '1.0.0']);
Laradocs::share('app_name', config('app.name'));
Laradocs::macro('tweet', fn (array $args) => "<a href="...">@{$args['user']}</a>");

#SEO, Caching, and Output

Rendered pages get automatic meta tags, Open Graph and Twitter card data, and JSON-LD, along with a generated sitemap at {prefix}/sitemap.xml. Laradocs caches rendered pages and invalidates the cache when source files change. You can also pre-render every page ahead of time or clear the cache manually:

php artisan laradocs:cache
php artisan laradocs:clear

The package requires PHP 8.2+ and supports Laravel 11, 12, and 13. You can learn more on the Laradocs website and view the source on GitHub.

Source: https://laravel-news.com