Markdown docs automation (like README.md) from external or remote files

Published in

FAUN — Developer Community 🐾

4 min readJul 13, 2021

https://github.com/dineshsonachalam/markdown-autodocs

Why markdown-autodocs

To make your repo more appealing and useful you need to provide example code snippets in your README.md. It would be inefficient and time-consuming to manually copy and paste each code snippet in its respective places in your README.

This problem can be solved using markdown-autodocs a GitHub Action that automatically generates & updates markdown content (like your README.md) from external or remote files. You need to add markers in your README.md that will tell markdown-autodocs where to insert the code snippet.

Features

Code block: Insert code snippet in your markdown file from external or remote files.
JSON to HTML table: Insert HTML Table in your markdown file by converting JSON file contents to HTML table.
Github Workflow Artifacts table: Insert the Github workflow artifacts table in your markdown file by getting the latest artifacts for a workflow run.

Examples

CODE Block

Get code from an external file or URL and insert it in your markdown.

Options:

src: The relative path to the code to pull in, or the URL where the raw code lives

JSON to HTML table

Get JSON contents from an external file, convert it into an HTML table, and insert it in your markdown.

Options:

src: The relative path to the JSON file to pull in.

Github Workflow Artifacts table

Get the list of the latest artifacts generated from a workflow run. Generates a workflow artifacts table consists of artifacts download and workflow URL in an HTML table and inserts it in your markdown file.

Example Repo which uses all the markdown-autodocs feature

Local usage without Github action

Install markdown-autodocs CLI:

npm i -g markdown-autodocs

markdown-autodocs CLI usage:

dineshsonachalam@macbook ~ % markdown-autodocs --help
Usage: markdown-autodocs [options]Options:
  -o, --outputFilePath <outputFilePaths...>  Output file paths
  -c, --category <categories...>             code-block, json-to-html-table, workflow-artifact-table
  -r, --repo <type>                          Repo name
  -b, --branch <type>                        Branch name
  -a, --accessToken <type>                   Github Access token
  -h, --help                                 display help for command

Code block

markdown-autodocs -c code-block -o ./README.md

JSON to HTML table

markdown-autodocs -c json-to-html-table -o ./README.md

Github workflow artifacts table

markdown-autodocs -c workflow-artifact-table -o ./README.md -r $REPO -b $BRANCH -a $ACCESSTOKEN

Usage

Adding markdown-autodocs in your workflow

Add the following step at the end of your job, after other steps that might add or change files.

uses: dineshsonachalam/markdown-autodocs@v1.0.3

Extended example with all possible options available for this Action

- name: Markdown autodocs
- uses: dineshsonachalam/markdown-autodocs@v1.0.3
  with:
    # Optional, defaults to author of the commit that triggered the run
    commit_author: Author <actions@github.com>    # Optional, defaults to "actions@github.com"
    commit_user_email: actions@github.com    # Optional, but recommended
    # Defaults to "Apply automatic changes"
    commit_message: Apply automatic changes    # Optional branch name where commit should be pushed to.
    # Defaults to the current branch.
    branch: feature-123    # Optional output file paths, defaults to '[./README.md]'.
    output_file_paths: '[./README.md]'    # Categories to automatically sync or transform its contents in the markdown files.
    # Defaults to '[code-block,json-to-html-table,workflow-artifact-table]'
    categories: '[code-block,json-to-html-table,workflow-artifact-table]'