Automatic documentation and Storybook
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Storybook Autodocs is a powerful tool that can help you quickly generate comprehensive documentation for your UI components. By leveraging Autodocs, you're transforming your stories into living documentation which can be further extended with MDX and Doc Blocks to provide a clear and concise understanding of your components' functionality.
Storybook infers the relevant metadata (e.g., args
, argTypes
, parameters
) and automatically generates a documentation page with this information positioned at the root-level of your component tree in the sidebar.
Set up automated documentation
Autodocs is configured through tags. If a CSF file contains at least one story tagged with autodocs
, then a documentation page will be generated for that component.
To enable automatic documentation for all stories in a project, add it to tags
in your .storybook/preview.js|ts
file:
You can also enable it at the component (or story) level:
You can disable auto docs for a particular component by removing the tag:
Similarly, you can exclude a particular story from the auto docs page, by removing the tag:
Configure
In addition to enabling the feature with tags
, you can extend your Storybook configuration file (i.e., .storybook/main.js|ts|cjs
) and provide additional options to control how documentation gets created. Listed below are the available options and examples of how to use them.
Option | Description |
---|---|
defaultName | Renames the auto-generated documentation page Default: docs: { defaultName: 'Documentation' } |
Write a custom template
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To replace the default documentation template used by Storybook, you can extend your UI configuration file (i.e., .storybook/preview.js|ts
) and introduce a docs
parameter. This parameter accepts a page
function that returns a React component, which you can use to generate the required template. For example:
Internally, Storybook uses a similar implementation to generate the default template. See the Doc Blocks API reference to learn more about how Doc Blocks work.
Going over the code snippet in more detail. When Storybook starts up, it will override the default template with the custom one composed of the following:
- A header with the component's metadata retrieved by the
Title
,Subtitle
, andDescription
Doc Blocks. - The first story defined in the file via the
Primary
Doc Block with a handy set of UI controls to zoom in and out of the component. - An interactive table with all the relevant
args
andargTypes
defined in the story via theControls
Doc Block. - A overview of the remaining stories via the
Stories
Doc Block.
With MDX
You can also use MDX to generate the documentation template. This is useful in non-React projects where JSX-handling is not configured. Normally, when you create an MDX file in your project, it is treated as normal documentation. To indicate that an MDX file is a documentation template, supply the isTemplate
property to its Meta
Doc Block. For example:
Then you can use it in your .storybook/preview.js
or an individual story file by importing it:
If you only need to override the documentation page for a single component, we recommend creating an MDX file and referencing it directly via the <Meta of={} />
Doc Block.
Generate a table of contents
Storybook's auto-generated documentation pages can be quite long and difficult to navigate. To help with this, you can enable the table of contents feature to provide a quick overview of the documentation page and allow users to jump to a specific section. To enable it, extend your Storybook UI configuration file (i.e., .storybook/preview.js
) and provide a docs
parameter with a toc
property.
Configure the table of contents
By default, the table of contents on the documentation page will only show the h3
headings that are automatically generated. However, if you want to customize the table of contents, you can add more parameters to the toc
property. The following options and examples of how to use them are available.
Option | Description |
---|---|
contentsSelector | Defines the container's CSS selector for search for the headings toc: { contentsSelector: '.sbdocs-content' } |
disable | Hides the table of contents for the documentation pages toc: { disable: true } |
headingSelector | Defines the list of headings to feature in the table of contents toc: { headingSelector: 'h1, h2, h3' } |
ignoreSelector | Configures the table of contents to ignore specific headings or stories. By default, the table of contents will ignore all content placed within Story blocks toc: { ignoreSelector: '.docs-story h2' } |
title | Defines a title caption for the table of contents. Accepts one of: string , null , React element toc: { title: 'Table of Contents' } |
unsafeTocbotOptions | Provides additional TocBot configuration options toc: { unsafeTocbotOptions: { orderedList: true } } |
The contentsSelector
, headingSelector
, and ignoreSelector
properties allow additional customization. For more information on using them, see the Tocbot
documentation.
Component-level configuration
If you want to customize the table of contents for a specific story, you can include a toc
property in the story's default export and provide the required configuration. For example, if you need to hide the table of contents for a specific story, adjust your story as follows:
Customize component documentation
Creating automated documentation with Storybook's Autodocs provides you with the starting point to build a sustainable documentation pattern. Nevertheless, it may not be suited for every case, and you may want to extend it and provide additional information. We recommend combining MDX alongside Storybook's Doc Blocks for such cases to author your documentation.
Advanced configuration
Documenting multiple components
Sometimes it's helpful to document multiple components together. For example, a component libraryโs ButtonGroup and Button components might not make sense without one another.
Autodocs allows you to document your "main" component, defined by the component
property, as well as one or more subcomponents
related to it.
The main component and its subcomponents will show up in a tabbed version of the ArgTypes
doc block. The tab titles will correspond to the keys of the subcomponents
object.
If you want to organize your documentation differently for component groups, we recommend using MDX. It gives you complete control over how your components are displayed and supports any configuration.
Customize the Docs Container
The Docs Container is the component that wraps up the documentation page. It's responsible for rendering the documentation page in Storybook's UI. You can customize it by creating your own component and updating your Storybook UI configuration file (i.e., .storybook/preview.js
) to reference it.
Override the default theme
By default, Storybook provides two themes for the UI: light
and dark
. If you need to customize the theme used by the documentation to match the existing one, you can update your Storybook UI configuration file (i.e., .storybook/preview.js
) and apply it.
Working with custom MDX components
Out of the box, Storybook has a set of components that you can use to customize your documentation page. If you're working with a design system or component library and wish to add them to your documentation page, you can override the MDXProvider
component inherited from @mdx-js/react
with your own. However, there's a caveat to this, the component replacement will only have an impact if you're writing documentation using Markdown syntax (e.g., #
for headings). Native HTML elements, such as <h1>
, will not be replaced with your custom implementation.
This is not a Storybook issue but a detail of how MDX works. From their migration guide:
โWe now โsandboxโ components, for lack of a better name. It means that when you pass a component for h1, it does get used for # hi
but not for <h1>hi</h1>
โ
Troubleshooting
The table of contents doesn't render as expected
When using Autodocs's table of contents, you may encounter situations where it appears differently than expected. To help you resolve these problems, we have compiled a list of possible scenarios that may cause issues.
With simple documentation pages
If you have a documentation page with only one matching heading and create a table of contents for it, the table of contents will not be hidden by default. A potential solution for this issue would be to add a second heading or turn it off entirely.
With small screens
If the screen width is less than 1200px, the table of contents will be hidden by default. Currently, there's no built-in solution for this issue that doesn't impact the documentation page's style compatibility.
With MDX
If you're writing unattached documentation using MDX, you cannot customize the table of contents primarily due to the lack of support for defining parameters based on the current implementation. As a result, the table of contents will always revert to the default configuration provided globally.
The auto-generated documentation is not showing up in a monorepo setup
Out of the box, Storybook's Autodocs feature is built to generate documentation for your stories automatically. Nevertheless, if you're working with a monorepo setup (e.g., Yarn Workspaces
, pnpm Workspaces
), you may run into issues where part of the documentation may not be generated for you. To help you troubleshoot those issues, we've prepared some recommendations that might help you.
Update your import statements to reference the component directly instead of the package's root. For example:
Additionally, if you're developing using TypeScript, you may need to update Storybook's configuration file (i.e., .storybook/main.js|ts
) to include the following:
If you're still encountering issues, we recommend reaching out to the community using the default communication channels (e.g., GitHub discussions).
The controls are not updating the story within the auto-generated documentation
If you turned off inline rendering for your stories via the inline
configuration option, you would run into a situation where the associated controls are not updating the story within the documentation page. This is a known limitation of the current implementation and will be addressed in a future release.
Learn more about Storybook documentation
- Autodocs for creating documentation for your stories
- MDX for customizing your documentation
- Doc Blocks for authoring your documentation
- Publishing docs to automate the process of publishing your documentation