#Quick Start

#Install

pnpm add ciderpress

ciderpress requires Node ≥24. Peer dependencies are @rspress/core, react@19, and react-dom@19 — pnpm installs these automatically; npm classic and yarn classic users must install them explicitly.

#Initialize

Run ciderpress setup for an interactive walkthrough, or create a ciderpress.config.ts manually at your repo root:

import { defineConfig } from 'ciderpress'

export default defineConfig({
  title: 'My Project',
  description: 'Project documentation',
  sections: [
    {
      title: 'Getting Started',
      path: '/getting-started',
      include: 'docs/getting-started/*.md',
    },
  ],
})

Add another section to the sections array that auto-discovers pages from a directory:

// inside the sections array
{
  title: 'Guides',
  path: '/guides',
  include: 'docs/guides/*.md',
  icon: 'pixelarticons:book-open',
}

Every .md file matching the glob becomes a page under /guides/.

#Configure the site chrome

Tell ciderpress about your repo so visitors get a real "Edit this page" link, a version chip in the topbar, and a topbar CTA:

// ciderpress.config.ts
export default defineConfig({
  // ...
  site: {
    version: 'v1.0',
    edit: { repo: 'acme/docs', branch: 'main', directory: 'docs' },
    report: { repo: 'acme/docs' },
    topbarCta: { text: 'Get started →', href: '/getting-started' },
  },
})

Every field is optional — pieces you don't configure render nothing rather than placeholder content. See the Configuration reference for the full site.* surface (sidebar promo, announcement banner, footer columns, etc.).

#Start the dev server

ciderpress dev

This copies and processes your source markdown into the .ciderpress/content/ build directory, starts a file watcher for live reload, and launches the dev server. Open the URL printed in the terminal to see your site.

Pass --headless for non-interactive shells (CI, Docker, nodemon) — the default Ink TUI requires a real TTY.

#Commands

#Project structure

After running ciderpress dev, the .ciderpress/ directory is created:

your-repo/
├── docs/                       # Your source markdown
│   ├── intro.md
│   └── guides/
│       └── _meta.json          # Optional: sidebar order/labels per folder
├── ciderpress.config.ts        # Site configuration
└── .ciderpress/                # Generated — add to .gitignore
    ├── content/                # Synced pages + Rspress-consumed _meta.json files
    │   └── _nav.json           # Top-nav definition consumed by Rspress
    ├── public/                 # Static assets
    ├── dist/                   # Build output
    └── cache/                  # Build cache

Inside .ciderpress/content/, sidebars are driven by _meta.json files placed alongside the markdown, and the top nav comes from _nav.json at the root — those are what Rspress reads. Runtime artifacts for the UI live under .ciderpress/content/.generated/ (workspaces.json, scopes.json); sidebar.json and nav.json there are debug snapshots only.

If you skipped ciderpress setup, add .ciderpress/ to your .gitignore manually.

#Next steps

• Content — learn how sections, pages, and navigation work
• Configuration reference — complete field reference for ciderpress.config.ts