ElderDocs

Interactive API documentation for Rails. Convert your OpenAPI spec into a beautiful, testable documentation site.

• 🚀 Interactive API Explorer - Test endpoints directly from docs
• 🎨 Customizable UI - Configure via elderdocs.yml
• 📖 Guides & Articles - Add custom documentation
• 🔐 Multiple Auth Types - Bearer, API Key, Basic, OAuth2
• ⚡ Zero Compilation - Edit JSON files, changes appear instantly!
• 📋 Copy cURL - One-click copy of API requests

Add to your Gemfile:

gem 'elder_docs'

Then:

bundle install

Create definitions.json in your Rails root:

{
  "openapi": "3.0.0",
  "info": {
    "title": "My API",
    "version": "1.0.0"
  },
  "servers": [{"url": "https://api.example.com"}],
  "paths": {
    "/users": {
      "get": {
        "summary": "List users",
        "responses": {
          "200": {"description": "Success"}
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Create articles.json:

[
  {
    "id": "getting_started",
    "title": "Getting Started",
    "markdown_content": "## Welcome\n\nYour guide here..."
  }
]

bundle exec elderdocs deploy

This builds the frontend SPA into public/elderdocs (configurable via output_path).

Note: This is a one-time build. After this, you can edit definitions.json and articles.json - changes appear instantly without rebuilding!

# config/routes.rb
mount ElderDocs::Engine, at: '/docs'

Open http://localhost:3000/docs 🎉

No compilation needed! After the initial build:

• ✏️ Edit definitions.json → Changes appear immediately
• ✏️ Edit articles.json → Changes appear immediately
• ✏️ Edit elderdocs.yml → Restart Rails server to see UI changes

The frontend fetches data dynamically from your JSON files at runtime.

Create elderdocs.yml in your Rails root:

# API server URL
api_server: https://api.example.com

# Multiple environments
api_servers:
  - url: https://api-sandbox.example.com
    description: Sandbox
  - url: https://api.example.com
    description: Production

# Authentication types
auth_types:
  - bearer
  - api_key
  - basic
  - oauth2

# UI customization
ui:
  font_heading: 'Syne'
  font_body: 'IBM Plex Sans'
  colors:
    primary: '#f8d447'
    secondary: '#000000'
    background: '#ffffff'
    surface: '#ffffff'
  corner_radius: '0px'

# Custom file paths (optional, defaults to definitions.json and articles.json)
definitions_file: definitions.json
articles_file: articles.json

# Where to write generated assets (relative paths are resolved from Rails.root)
output_path: ./public/elderdocs

bundle exec elderdocs deploy \
  --definitions custom.json \
  --articles guides.json \
  --api-server https://api.example.com \
  --output public/custom-docs

• Ruby >= 2.7.0
• Rails >= 6.0
• Node.js >= 16.0 (for building assets)

For rapid iteration during development:

./dev_build.sh
# or
rake elderdocs:dev

This rebuilds and reinstalls the gem locally without publishing.

To build, test, and optionally publish a new version:

./build_and_deploy.sh
# or
rake elderdocs:deploy

Options:

• --skip-publish - Build and test but don't publish to RubyGems
• --skip-tests - Skip running tests

# Build gem
rake elderdocs:build
# or
gem build elder_docs.gemspec

# Install locally
gem install elder_docs-*.gem --local

# Publish (when ready)
gem push elder_docs-*.gem

MIT