Generate your README from a template. If you already use Grunt, this is a no brainer.
For inspiration also see EXAMPLES.md →
If you haven't used grunt before, be sure to check out the Getting Started guide.
From the same directory as your project's Gruntfile and package.json, install this plugin with the following command:
npm install grunt-readme --save-dev
Once that's done, add this line to your project's Gruntfile:
grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-readme');
If the plugin has been installed correctly, running grunt --help
at the command line should list the newly-installed plugin's task or tasks. In addition, the plugin should be listed in package.json as a devDependency
, which ensures that it will be installed whenever the npm install
command is run.
In your project's Gruntfile, load the plugin with grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-readme');
outside of grunt.initConfig()
:
grunt.initConfig({
// tasks
});
grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-readme');
grunt.registerTask('default', ['readme']);
If you are happy with the defaults, no other configuration is required.
assemble
This task does not require any configuration in the Gruntfile, so all of the following options are... ahem, optional.
To change the plugin's defaults, add a section to your project's Gruntfile named readme
to the data object passed into grunt.initConfig()
:
grunt.initConfig({
// The "readme" task
readme: {
options: {}
}
});
grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-readme');
grunt.registerTask('default', ['readme']);
Type: String
Default: ./node_modules/grunt-readme/tasks/templates/README.tmpl.md
By default, if no options are specified the task will look for a README.md.tmpl
template to use, if none is found the task will use the "starter" file supplied by grunt-readme
(more detail below). Example:
readme: {
options: {
readme: 'path/to/custom/README.md.tmpl'
}
}
- If the
readme
options is defined, the task will use that custom template. - If (1) is undefined, the task uses the directory defined by
options: { docs: ''}
- If (2) is undefined, the task checks if
README.tmpl.md
exists in the./docs
directory (without having to define it in the options) - if (3) is undefined,
options: { resolve: { readme: ''}}
attempts to automagically use aREADME.tmpl.md
template fromnode_modules
. The module must must be defined indevDependencies
. Note that for a README template to resolve properly fromnode_modules
, themain
property in thepackage.json
of the module being referenced must specify the path to the template. This option is probably most useful when you plan to use the same README template on a number of projects. - If (4) is undefined, the task uses the "starter" README template from
grunt-readme
.
Type: String|Object
Default: package.json
Optional source of metadata to extend the data object that is passed as context into the templates. Context of the data object is the value of this
, and properties in package.json
will be ignored when matching properties are defined on the metadata
object. Example:
readme: {
options: {
metadata: 'docs/metadata.json'
}
}
or
readme: {
options: {
metadata: {
name: 'Foo',
description: 'This is foo.'
}
}
}
Since context is the value of "this", the metadata
path is not required in templates, only property names:
{%= name %}
(e.g. not{%= metadata.name %}
) =>Foo
{%= description %}
=>This is foo.
Type: String
Default: ./docs/
Override the default directory where your local docs ("includes") will be stored. This defaults to the ./docs
directory in the root of your project. with the 'docs' option.
Type: String
Default: ./node_modules/grunt-readme/tasks/templates/
(relative to your project)
The cwd
for "includes" defined using the {%= _.include() %}
template. By default, the include
mixin will look for files in the ./tasks/templates
directory of this project (grunt-readme), where some starter templates are stored. (also see EXAMPLES.md)
You may overide this by specifying a path in the templates
option:
readme: {
options: {
templates: 'docs/templates'
}
}
All of the resolve
options enable including content from named NPM modules listed in devDependencies
.
Type: String
Default: undefined
Name of the npm module containing the README.tmpl.md
file to use for the README template. The module must be listed in the devDependencies
of your project, and the template must be defined in the main
property of the named module.
options: {
resolve: {
readme: 'my-npm-module'
}
}
If defined properly in the main
property of the package.json
of my-npm-module
, this would resolve to: ./node_modules/my-npm-module/README.tmpl.md
.
Type: String
Default: undefined
If defined, resolve.docs
becomes the cwd
for files to be included using the {%= _.doc() %}
mixin.
options: {
resolve: {
docs: 'my-npm-module'
}
}
This would resolve to: ./node_modules/my-npm-module/
.
Type: String
Default: undefined
The name of the module to use to extend the data object that is passed as context into the templates. This works the same as options.metadata
except that resolve.metadata
will use the main
property from the package.json of the specified module. As with other "resolve" options, for this to work the module must be specified in the devDependencies
of your project's package.json, and it must be installed in node_modules
.
For example, let's say we have a project named foo, and this is the package.json for our project:
{
"name": "foo",
"devDependencies": {
"bar": "*"
}
}
Once we install our devDependencies
, we might have a project structure like this:
docs
node_modules
grunt-readme
bar
metadata.json
package.json // the "main" property specifies "./metadata.json"
Gruntfile.js
package.json
Now, in the Gruntfile for our project, "foo", to use the metadata.json
file from "bar", we define the following in the readme
task:
readme: {
options: {
resolve: {
metadata: 'bar'
}
}
}
Type: Array
Default: grunt|helper|mixin
Any prefixes defined will be removed from content passed in using the {%= _.shortname() %}
template. Example:
readme: {
options: {
prefixes: ["foo", "bar", "baz"]
}
}
Given a package.json
with the following property:
{
"name": "foo-module"
}
when referenced in a template like this:
## {%= _.titleize(_.shortname(name)) %}
will renders to:
## Module
Type: Boolean
Default: True
By default, the README task copies a basic CONTRIBUTING.md
file to the root of your project. If one exists, the task will skip this. If you wish to prevent the task from adding this file to your project, set the contributing
option to false
.
Type: String
Default: \n
Separator to use between sections of content that is included using the include
or doc
mixins (more about these in the "Mixins" section below). This option is more useful when you use minimatch patterns to specify the files to include.
The sep
option can either be defined in the task options:
readme: {
options: {
sep: '\n***\n'
}
}
or as a second parameter in the include
or doc
mixins.
{%= _.include("docs-*.md", "***") %}
(more below...){%= _.doc("*.md", "\n***\n") %}
(more below...)
Three different mixins are built into the task for including "external" content:
include
,doc
andresolve
. Each is used for a different purpose.
Here is a summary of what they do (settings for the include
and doc
mixins can be customized in the task options):
{%= _.include("file.md") %}
: include a file (or files using minimatch patterns) from the./templates/
directory of the grunt-readme task.{%= _.doc("file.md") %}
: include a file (or files using minimatch patterns) from the./docs/
directory of your project.{%= _.resolve("file.md") %}
: include a specific file from node_modules`.
Use the include
mixin in templates to pull in content from other files:
{%= _.include("examples.md") %}
Minimatch patterns may also be used:
{%= _.include("docs-*.md") %}
Unless overridden in the templates
option, the include
mixin will use the ./node_modules/grunt-readme/tasks/templates/
directory (from the root of your project) as the cwd
for templates.
Same as the include
mixin but is hard-coded to use the docs/
folder of your project as the cwd
for templates.
Use the resolve
mixin in templates to include content from named NPM modules listed in devDependencies
:
{%= _.resolve("my-npm-module") %}
where my-npm-module
is the name of a devDependency
currently installed in node_modules
. For the resolve
mixin to work, the referenced file must be listed in the devDependencies
of your project's package.json
, it must be installed in node_modules
, and the referenced project must have the file defined in the main
property of that project's package.json
. Last, in your templates make sure you use the name of the module, not the name of the file to "include".
Here is a package.json
for a bogus project we created, my-npm-module
, to store the template we want to use as an include:
{
"name": "my-npm-module",
"main": "README.tmpl.md"
}
Get the value of any property in package.json
. Example:
{%= _.meta('name') %}
{%= _.meta('version') %}
{%= _.meta('contributors') %}
{%= _.meta('keywords') %}
A second paramter can be passed in to set the indentation on returned JSON: {%= _.meta('contributors', 4) %}
. This only works for stringified objects.
Also, if left undefined ({%= _.meta() %}
) the mixin will return the entire metadata object (by default, this is the entire contents of package.json
):
Render contributors listed in the project's package.json.
Extract the username or org from URLs in the project's package.json. The mixin will extract the username from the homepage
property if it exists. If not, it will try to extract the username from the git.url
property.
Extract the homepage URL from the project's package.json. If a homepage
property doesn't exist, the mixin will create a homepage
URL using the value defined in the git.url
property.
## my-project
> {%= description %}
### Overview
{%= _.include("docs-overview.md") %}
### Options
{%= _.include("docs-options.md") %}
### Examples
{%= _.include("docs-examples.md") %}
### License and Copyright
Copyright (c) 2012-{%= grunt.template.today('yyyy') %} [{%= author.name %}]({%= author.url %})
{%= _.license() %}
readme: {
options: {
templates: '',
metadata: '',
resolve: {
cwd: '',
readme: '',
docs: '',
templates: '',
metadata: ''
},
sep: '\n',
prefixes: [],
contributing: true
}
}
To prevent Lo-Dash from attempting to evaluat templates that shouldn't be (as in code examples), just use square brackets instead of curly braces in any templates that have similar patterns to these: {%= .. %}
, {%- .. %}
, and {% .. %}
. The square brackets will be replaced with curly braces in the rendered output.
Please see the Contributing to grunt-readme guide for information on contributing to this project.
- github/Jon Schlinkert
- [twitter/Jon Schlinkert](http://twitter.com/Jon Schlinkert)
- 2013-09-21 v0.1.3 Completely refactored. Adds a lot of documentation.
- 2013-09-19 v0.1.0 First commmit.
Copyright (c) 2013 Jon Schlinkert Released under the MIT license
This file was generated on Sun Sep 22 2013 15:59:51.