The @docmd/plugin-git plugin adds repository intelligence to your documentation site. It queries local Git history during compilation to display page modification timestamps, author contributions, and automated “Edit this page” links.
Configuration Options
Configure repository parameters in docmd.config.json:
| Option | Type | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
repo |
string |
null |
Public repository URL (e.g. https://github.com/org/repo). Required for edit links. |
branch |
string |
'main' |
Target branch for source edit links. |
editLink |
boolean |
true |
Display “Edit this page” button in page footers. |
lastUpdated |
boolean |
true |
Display last updated timestamp in page footers. |
commitHistory |
boolean |
true |
Display commit history hover tooltip on timestamp hover. |
maxCommits |
number |
5 |
Maximum number of commits shown in the hover tooltip. |
dateFormat |
string |
'relative' |
Date format mode: relative (default), iso, or locale-aware. |
Example Configuration
{
"plugins": {
"git": {
"repo": "https://github.com/docmd-io/docmd",
"branch": "main",
"editLink": true,
"lastUpdated": true,
"commitHistory": true,
"maxCommits": 5
}
}
}
Key Capabilities
- Last-Updated Timestamps: Automatically calculated per file and displayed in page footers.
- Commit History Tooltips: Hovering over timestamps renders recent commit hashes, commit messages, and author avatars.
- Automated Edit Links: Generates direct edit URLs pointing to GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket.
- Build-Time Caching: Git queries execute during compilation and cache results locally, ensuring zero runtime impact.
Page-Level Controls
Disable Git features for specific documents using Page Frontmatter:
---
title: "Internal Notes"
plugins:
git: false
---
CI/CD Pipeline Integration
The Git plugin executes local git CLI commands during site compilation. Many CI/CD runners (such as GitHub Actions or GitLab CI) perform shallow clones (fetch-depth: 1), which truncates commit history and causes all pages to show identical timestamp dates.
Ensure your build workflow fetches full Git history:
Add fetch-depth: 0 to your checkout step:
- name: Checkout Repository
uses: actions/checkout@v4
with:
fetch-depth: 0
Set the GIT_DEPTH environment variable to 0:
variables:
GIT_DEPTH: 0
Netlify fetches full history by default. If using custom build scripts, ensure the .git directory is preserved in the build workspace.
The .git directory and the git binary must be accessible within your compilation container or build environment.
Localisation Support
The Git plugin supports multi-locale translation maps for footer strings and timestamp formats. Custom strings can be provided through the UI Localisation configuration.
