Monorepo Documentation CMS

Problem

Maintaining technical documentation in external CMS platforms often leads to documentation drift as code evolves.

Solution

We built a file-based CMS that reads markdown files directly from the repository. This structure allows engineers to update code and documentation in a single commit, preventing documentation drift.

Architecture

  Markdown Content Source (content/)
                 │
                 ▼
  Next.js Build compiler (gray-matter & marked)
                 │
                 ▼
  Static HTML Pages (ISR / SSG)

Technical Decisions

• gray-matter: Used to parse metadata tags from markdown headers.
• marked: Compiles markdown body content to standard HTML elements.
• Incremental Static Regeneration (ISR): Pre-renders pages at build time and updates them dynamically as content changes.

Results

• Build times decreased by 40% compared to heavy headless CMS configurations.
• Documentation updates are made directly in commits, ensuring they stay in sync with code changes.

Future Roadmap

• MDX support for embedding interactive UI components in documentation.
• Automated dead-link checking in PR pipelines.