Chef documentation

This GitHub repository is the source for the Chef documentation published on docs.chef.io.

The chef/chef-web-docs repository contains:

• Source code for the Chef documentation theme
• Markdown files for much of the Chef Infra Client content
• Configuration files
• Vendored documentation from other repositories that are presented on docs.chef.io.

Style guide

See the Chef Documentation Style Guide for style guidance. If you don't find style guidance in the Chef Documentation Style Guide, use Google's Style Guide or Microsoft's Style Guide.

Distributed documentation

The Chef documentation source is highly distributed and depends on Hugo modules to pull in documentation from other Chef repositories. The content from those repositories is vendored in chef-web-docs.

To make changes to the content in those repositories, submit pull requests to the appropriate repository. don't submit pull requests to the vendored files in chef-web-docs. We will update those changes after they're merged or after a new version of a product is released.

GitHub repositories

We source documentation from the following repositories:

• Chef Automate: https://github.com/chef/automate/tree/main/components/docs-chef-io
• Chef Infra Server: https://github.com/chef/chef-server/tree/main/docs-chef-io
• Chef Workstation https://github.com/chef/chef-workstation/tree/main/docs-chef-io
• Chef Desktop https://github.com/chef/desktop-config/tree/main/docs-chef-io
• Chef Supermarket https://github.com/chef/supermarket/tree/main/docs-chef-io
• Chef Habitat https://github.com/habitat-sh/habitat/tree/main/components/docs-chef-io
• Chef InSpec https://github.com/inspec/inspec/tree/main/docs-chef-io
• Chef InSpec AWS https://github.com/inspec/inspec-aws/tree/main/docs-chef-io
• Chef InSpec Azure https://github.com/inspec/inspec-azure/tree/main/docs-chef-io
• Chef InSpec AliCloud https://github.com/inspec/inspec-alicloud/tree/main/docs-chef-io
• Chef InSpec Habitat https://github.com/inspec/inspec-habitat/tree/main/docs-chef-io

We source the theme from this site from https://github.com/chef/chef-docs-theme.

DCO signoff

The fastest way to change the documentation is to edit a page on the GitHub website using the GitHub UI.

To perform edits using the GitHub UI, click on the [edit on GitHub] link at the top of the page that you want to edit. The link takes you to that topic's GitHub page. In GitHub, click on the pencil icon and make your changes. You can preview how they'll look right on the page ("Preview Changes" tab).

We also require contributors to include their DCO signoff in the comment section of every pull request, except for obvious fixes. You can add your DCO signoff to the comments by including Signed-off-by:, followed by your name and email address, like this:

Signed-off-by: Haris Shefu <[email protected]>

See our blog post for more information about the DCO and why we require it.

After you've added your DCO signoff, add a comment about your proposed change, then click on the "Propose file change" button at the bottom of the page and confirm your pull request. The CI system will do some checks and add a comment to your PR with the results.

The Chef Documentation Team can normally merge pull requests within seven days. We'll fix build errors before we merge, so you don't have to worry about passing all of the CI checks, but it might add an extra few days. The important part is submitting your change.

Edit on GitHub links

We use a partial edit_on_github.html to add "Edit on GitHub" links to each page.

Each page should have a gh_repo parameter set to the value of the GitHub repository that the page comes from. For example, gh_repo = "chef-server"

Each repository with documentation has a config.toml file with a params.<REPOSITORY> map and a gh_path parameter set to the path of the docs content directory in that repository.

The edit_on_github partial appends the page file name to the end of gh_path parameter and adds the link to the text of the page.

Local development environment

The Chef Documentation website is built using:

• Hugo 0.123.4 or higher
• Node 20.0.0 or higher
• NPM 10.4.0 or higher
• Go 1.22 or higher

To install Hugo, NPM, and Go on Windows, run:

choco install hugo-extended nodejs golang sass

To install Hugo, NPM, Go, and Dart Sass on macOS, run:

brew install hugo node go sass/sass/sass

To install Hugo on Ubuntu, run:

• apt install -y build-essential
• snap install node --classic --channel=12
• snap install hugo --channel=extended
• snap install dart-sass

Troubleshoot your development environment

To clean your local development environment:

• Run make clean_all to delete the SASS files, Javascript, and fonts. Hugo rebuilds these the next time you run make serve.

• Run make clean_all to delete the node modules used to build this site in addition to the functions of make clean described above. Those node modules will be reinstalled the next time you run make serve.

Site theme

The theme for this site is deployed from the chef/chef-docs-theme repository.

Node modules

The Node modules defined in the package.json file are sourced from the package.hugo.json file in the chef/chef-docs-theme repository. To update these Node dependencies, update them in chef/chef-docs-theme, then update the theme and the package.json file in this repository.

Local theme testing

You can test local changes made to the chef-docs-theme repository and preview those changes using Hugo's local development server. To do this, create a Go workspace file that modifies the source of Hugo's modules, source the workspace file, and start the local server.

For example:

1. Create a hugo.work file in root of this project.

2. Add the following config information to the hugo.work file:

   go 1.22
   
   use .
   use ../path/to/local/chef-docs-theme

3. Start the Hugo local server:

   make test_theme

   This command adds the hugo.work file to the Hugo workspace and then ignores the contents of chef-docs-theme repo in the _vendor directory.

Test theme branch

You can target a Git commit, branch, or tag when importing a module. This allows you to push a test branch up to chef/chef-docs-theme and then import it into this repository for local testing.

For example:

hugo mod get -u github.com/chef/chef-docs-theme@<GIT_COMMIT_SHA>

or

hugo mod get -u github.com/chef/chef-docs-theme@<GIT_BRANCH>

Update theme

Run make update_theme to update the chef-docs-theme to the latest commit. This updates the theme and the theme's node dependencies.

Build and preview the docs

You can preview documentation using one of the following:

• Submit a PR and look at the Netlify preview.
• Build the documentation locally.

Submit a PR and look at the Netlify preview

Netlify generates deploy previews of pull requests made on the chef-web-docs repository and adds a link to the pull request page. This is automatic for members of the Chef GitHub organization; the Documentation Team can manually trigger Netlify to build previews from contributors who aren't members of the Chef GitHub organization.

Build and preview the docs locally

• Run make serve
• go to http://localhost:1313

Build and preview using Netlify CLI

You can use the Netlify CLI to build and preview documentation locally. This is useful for previewing redirects configured in the netlify.toml file.

Requirements:

• all the requirements for building this site locally
• Netlify CLI

Run netlify dev to preview the site using the Netlify CLI.

Build and preview the docs from the source repositories

• Run make serve_ignore_vendor

Some Chef documentation is stored in private repositories so this option is only available to Progress Chef employees.

Hugo vendoring

Vendoring stores all of the module content from other repositories in the _vendor directory at the commit specified by the go.mod file. When Hugo builds the documentation, it will grab content from the _vendor directory instead of the original repository OR a local copy of a that repository. To see which commits the vendored files reference, see the _vendor/modules.txt file.

To vendor the modules in chef-web-docs, run hugo mod vendor.

To update the vendored modules, first update the Hugo module(s), then run hugo mod vendor.

To ignore the vendored files in a Hugo build, run make serve_ignore_vendor. This is the same as make serve except it adds the --ignoreVendor flag. This will build the documentation from the GitHub repositories or from a local copy of a repository if the go.mod file specifies pulling content from a local repository. (see above)

Update Hugo modules

Hugo modules are pinned to a particular commit of the master branch in their repository. If you look in the go.mod and go.sum files, you'll notice that each repository specifies a git commit timestamp and SHA.

To update a particular repo, run:

hugo mod get github.com/chef/repo_to_update/subdirectory
hugo mod clean

Then vendor the documentation:

hugo mod vendor

For example, to update the chef-workstation repository:

hugo mod get github.com/chef/chef-workstation/docs-chef-io
hugo mod clean
hugo mod vendor

This will update that repository to the most recent commit.

You can also update a module to a commit version number. For example:

hugo mod get github.com/chef/chef-workstation/[email protected]
hugo mod clean
hugo mod vendor

And you can update a module to a Git commit. For example:

hugo mod get github.com/chef/chef-workstation/docs-chef-io@0ad84dd5fa8
hugo mod clean
hugo mod vendor

The hugo mod clean command removes references to commits in the go.mod and go.sum files that are no longer relevant.

See Hugo's documentation for additional information about updating Hugo Modules.

Update chef-docs-theme module

The theme for this site is sourced from chef/chef-docs-theme.

Run make update_theme to update the theme module and Node package dependencies.

What if Hugo doesn't update a module

Sometimes Hugo and Git are a bit difficult and won't update a module cleanly or will leave references to older commits of a module in the go.sum file.

If you get an error indicating that Git can't find a repository that's already added as a module, try restarting your computer.

If you still having trouble, try rebuilding the go.mod and go.sum files:

1. Delete the go.mod and go.sum files.
2. Re-initialize the Hugo modules, hugo mod init github.com/chef/chef-web-docs This will generate a new, blank go.mod file.
3. Update the references to the other GitHub repositories, hugo mod get -u.
4. The previous step will update all modules to the latest commit of their source repositories. If you don't want that, look at the git history of those files and manually edit the go.mod and go.sum files to keep the older commits for the modules that you don't want to update.
5. Run hugo mod tidy. This probably won't do anything on newly initialized go.mod and go.sum files, but it can't hurt either.
6. Vendor the modules in chef-web-docs, hugo mod vendor.

Release notes

Release notes are added to release notes pages using Hugo's resource.getRemote function and content from https://omnitruck.chef and https://packages.chef.io.

Chef Automate release versions, release dates, and links to release note Markdown files come from https://packages.chef.io/releases/current/automate.json.

Release versions for Chef Habitat come from https://api.github.com/repos/habitat-sh/habitat/releases.

Release versions for Chef InSpec Cloud resources comes from _vendor/github.com/inspec/inspec-<PLATFORM>/docs-chef-io/assets/release-notes/inspec-<PLATFORM>/release-dates.json.

Release versions for all other Chef products come from https://omnitruck.chef.io/stable/<PRODUCT>/versions/all.

Each release note page comes from a Markdown file from https://packages.chef.io/release-notes/<PRODUCT>/<VERSION>.md.

If a release note Markdown file isn't returned from packages.chef.io, the release note for that version will show the text, "This release doesn't have any release notes."

Preview release notes locally

Release note pages are only generated in the production environment. Running make serve won't build any of the content in the release note pages.

Run make production to build and preview the release notes.

Run make clean_all to purge locally cached release note files.

Add release note pages

To add a release notes page to chef-web-docs, add the following to a Markdown page:

release_notes = "<CHEF_PRODUCT>"
product = "<CHEF_PRODUCT>"
layout = "release_notes"
toc_layout = "release_notes_toc"

The <CHEF_PRODUCT> value comes from the Product Key in the Product Matrix.

Any content included in the release notes Markdown file will be included at the top of the page and the release notes will be appended below.

Archive of pre-2016 commit history

The commit history of this repo before February 12, 2016 has been archived to the chef-web-docs-2016 repo to save space. No changes to the archive repo will be merged; it's just for historical purposes.

Send feedback

We love getting feedback. You can use:

• Each page has a feedback form at the bottom of the page.
• Email --- Send an email to [email protected] for documentation bugs, ideas, thoughts, and suggestions. This email address isn't a support email address, however. If you need support, contact Chef support.
• Pull request --- Submit a PR to this repo using either of the two methods described above.
• Use chef-web-docs issues for docs feature requests and minor docs bugs.
• Submit issues to product repositories for "important" documentation bugs that may need visibility among a larger group, especially in situations where a doc bug may also surface a product bug.
  • chef/chef GitHub Issues --- For issues specific to Chef Infra Client.
  • chef/automate GitHub Issues --- For issues specific to Chef Automate.
  • chef/chef-server GitHub Issues --- For issues specific to Chef Infra Server.
  • chef/chef-workstation GitHub Issues --- For issues specific to Chef Workstation.
  • chef/supermarket GitHub Issues --- For issues specific to Chef Supermarket.
  • habitat-sh/habitat GitHub Issues --- For issues specific to Chef Habitat.
  • inspec/inspec GitHub Issues --- For issues specific to Chef InSpec.
  • inspec/inspec-aws GitHub Issues --- For issues specific to Chef InSpec AWS cloud resources.
  • inspec/inspec-azure GitHub Issues --- For issues specific to Chef InSpec Azure cloud resources.
  • inspec/inspec-habitat GitHub Issues --- For issues specific to Chef InSpec Habitat cloud resources.
  • inspec/inspec-alicloud GitHub Issues --- For issues specific to Chef InSpec Alibaba cloud resources.
• Chef Discourse --- This is a great place to interact with Chef and others.