Getting started

Statidocs is a documentation starter, built with the static site generator Cecil and its Docs theme.

Create a new project

The easiest way to create a new Statidocs project is using Composer:

composer create-project cecil/statidocs --ask

Start the local server

When working locally, Cecil’s built-in server lets you preview your work and automatically refreshes your browser when you make changes.

Inside your project directory, run the following command to start the local server:

php cecil.phar serve

This will log a message to your terminal with the URL of your local preview. Open this URL (http://localhost:8000 by default) to start browsing your documentation.

Add pages

File formats

Statidocs supports authoring content in Markdown with no configuration required. You can extend default capabilities by enabling Cecil’s Markdown options.

Organize pages

Add new pages to your site by creating .md files in pages/docs/. Use sub-folders to group pages: each sub-folder containing an index.md file becomes a collapsible group in the sidebar, at any depth.

For example, the following file structure will generate pages at /docs/getting-started/, /docs/guides/i18n/ and /docs/guides/advanced/customization/:

<my-project>
└─ pages
   └─ docs
      ├─ 1-Getting started.md
      └─ guides
         ├─ index.md
         ├─ 2-i18n.md
         └─ advanced
            ├─ index.md
            └─ 1-customization.md

Pages are sorted by weight: use a number prefix in the file name (e.g. 1-), or the weight front matter variable.

Front matter

All pages use front matter variables to control how the page appears:

---
title: Hello world
description: This is a page description.
---

See the front matter reference for the full list of variables.

Build and deploy

When you are ready to publish, generate the static site in the _site/ directory:

php cecil.phar build

Then upload the content of _site/ to any static web host (Netlify, Vercel, GitHub Pages, etc.). See the Cecil deployment documentation for more details.

Update Statidocs

Statidocs is built on top of the Cecil theme Docs. You can update it and other Cecil themes by running the following command in your terminal:

composer update

Update Cecil itself with its self-update command:

php cecil.phar self-update