Build and publish on GitHub

Build documentation website

The following sample workflow will trigger on every push to the main branch in the repository and build the starter project, where the default module name is Writerside and the default instance ID is hi:

name: Build documentation on: push: branches: ["main"] workflow_dispatch: env: INSTANCE: 'Writerside/hi' DOCKER_VERSION: '243.22562' jobs: build: runs-on: ubuntu-latest outputs: algolia_artifact: ${{ steps.define-ids.outputs.algolia_artifact }} artifact: ${{ steps.define-ids.outputs.artifact }} steps: - name: Checkout repository uses: actions/checkout@v4 with: fetch-depth: 0 - name: Define instance id and artifacts id: define-ids run: | INSTANCE=${INSTANCE#*/} INSTANCE_ID_UPPER=$(echo "$INSTANCE" | tr '[:lower:]' '[:upper:]') ARTIFACT="webHelp${INSTANCE_ID_UPPER}2-all.zip" ALGOLIA_ARTIFACT="algolia-indexes-${INSTANCE_ID_UPPER}.zip" # Print the values echo "INSTANCE_ID_UPPER: $INSTANCE_ID_UPPER" echo "ARTIFACT: $ARTIFACT" echo "ALGOLIA_ARTIFACT: $ALGOLIA_ARTIFACT" # Set the environment variables and outputs echo "INSTANCE_ID_UPPER=$INSTANCE_ID_UPPER" >> $GITHUB_ENV echo "ARTIFACT=$ARTIFACT" >> $GITHUB_ENV echo "ALGOLIA_ARTIFACT=$ALGOLIA_ARTIFACT" >> $GITHUB_ENV echo "artifact=$ARTIFACT" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT echo "algolia_artifact=$ALGOLIA_ARTIFACT" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT - name: Build docs using Writerside Docker builder uses: JetBrains/writerside-github-action@v4 with: instance: ${{ env.INSTANCE }} artifact: ${{ env.ARTIFACT }} docker-version: ${{ env.DOCKER_VERSION }} - name: Save artifact with build results uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4 with: name: docs path: | artifacts/${{ env.ARTIFACT }} artifacts/report.json artifacts/${{ env.ALGOLIA_ARTIFACT }} retention-days: 7

If necessary, set the correct values for environment variables:

env.INSTANCE

The name of the module and instance ID separated by a slash. The module name is the directory with writerside.cfg. It is designated by the icon in the Project tool window.

For example, the default module name in a starter project is Writerside and the instance ID is hi. So in this case, set the variable to Writerside/hi.

env.DOCKER_VERSION

The version of the Writerside Docker builder to use for generating the documentation artifacts. The current latest version is 243.22562.

When you update to a newer version of Writerside, set the new Docker builder version to ensure results similar to what you see in the local preview and local builds.

After you commit and push build-docs.yml, the Build documentation workflow will automatically trigger and run the build job. Go to the project repository on GitHub and open the Actions tab to see the workflow and the produced artifacts.

The build job runs on the latest Ubuntu virtual machine and consists of three steps:

Checkout the project repository using the actions/checkout@v4 action.
Generate the documentation website using the JetBrains/writerside-github-action@v4 action.
Save the generated website archive using the actions/upload-artifact@v4 action as part of the docs artifact.

Test produced artifacts

The Writerside builder produces a report with all problems that occurred during the build. You can view this report manually or configure a separate job that automatically checks the report and fails the workflow if it contains errors.

Modify the workflow file from the previous example and add report.json to the docs artifact that the build job produces. Also, add the test job to the workflow.

name: Build documentation on: push: branches: ["main"] workflow_dispatch: env: INSTANCE: 'Writerside/hi' DOCKER_VERSION: '243.22562' jobs: build: runs-on: ubuntu-latest outputs: algolia_artifact: ${{ steps.define-ids.outputs.algolia_artifact }} artifact: ${{ steps.define-ids.outputs.artifact }} steps: - name: Checkout repository uses: actions/checkout@v4 with: fetch-depth: 0 - name: Define instance id and artifacts id: define-ids run: | INSTANCE=${INSTANCE#*/} INSTANCE_ID_UPPER=$(echo "$INSTANCE" | tr '[:lower:]' '[:upper:]') ARTIFACT="webHelp${INSTANCE_ID_UPPER}2-all.zip" ALGOLIA_ARTIFACT="algolia-indexes-${INSTANCE_ID_UPPER}.zip" # Print the values echo "INSTANCE_ID_UPPER: $INSTANCE_ID_UPPER" echo "ARTIFACT: $ARTIFACT" echo "ALGOLIA_ARTIFACT: $ALGOLIA_ARTIFACT" # Set the environment variables and outputs echo "INSTANCE_ID_UPPER=$INSTANCE_ID_UPPER" >> $GITHUB_ENV echo "ARTIFACT=$ARTIFACT" >> $GITHUB_ENV echo "ALGOLIA_ARTIFACT=$ALGOLIA_ARTIFACT" >> $GITHUB_ENV echo "artifact=$ARTIFACT" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT echo "algolia_artifact=$ALGOLIA_ARTIFACT" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT - name: Build docs using Writerside Docker builder uses: JetBrains/writerside-github-action@v4 with: instance: ${{ env.INSTANCE }} artifact: ${{ env.ARTIFACT }} docker-version: ${{ env.DOCKER_VERSION }} - name: Save artifact with build results uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4 with: name: docs path: | artifacts/${{ env.ARTIFACT }} artifacts/report.json artifacts/${{ env.ALGOLIA_ARTIFACT }} retention-days: 7 test: needs: build runs-on: ubuntu-latest steps: - name: Download artifacts uses: actions/download-artifact@v4 with: name: docs path: artifacts - name: Test documentation uses: JetBrains/writerside-checker-action@v1 with: instance: ${{ env.INSTANCE }}

After you commit and push this workflow, the test job will run only if the build job finished successfully, and it consists of the following steps:

Download the docs artifact into artifacts using the actions/download-artifact@v4 action.
Parse report.json using the JetBrains/writerside-checker-action@v1 action, which fails the job if there are errors in the build report.

Build, test, and publish to GitHub Pages

You can publish the produced artifacts manually or in a separate workflow. However, if you want continuous delivery automation, configure a job in the same workflow that will deploy every successfully built and tested artifact to GitHub Pages.

Enable publishing to GitHub Pages

Open the repository on GitHub, click Settings, then click Pages under Code and automation, and then select GitHub Actions as the Source under Build and deployment.

Configure the web path for images

In the writerside.cfg file, set the web-path parameter in the <images> element to the GitHub repository name, for example:
<ihp version="2.0"> <topics dir="topics"/> <images dir="images" web-path="my-docs-repo"/> <instance src="hi.tree"/> </ihp>

Modify the workflow file from the previous example and assign write permissions for the id-token and pages scopes in your workflow. Also, add the deploy job to the workflow.

name: Build documentation on: push: branches: ["main"] workflow_dispatch: permissions: contents: read id-token: write pages: write env: INSTANCE: 'Writerside/hi' DOCKER_VERSION: '243.22562' jobs: build: runs-on: ubuntu-latest outputs: algolia_artifact: ${{ steps.define-ids.outputs.algolia_artifact }} artifact: ${{ steps.define-ids.outputs.artifact }} steps: - name: Checkout repository uses: actions/checkout@v4 with: fetch-depth: 0 - name: Define instance id and artifacts id: define-ids run: | INSTANCE=${INSTANCE#*/} INSTANCE_ID_UPPER=$(echo "$INSTANCE" | tr '[:lower:]' '[:upper:]') ARTIFACT="webHelp${INSTANCE_ID_UPPER}2-all.zip" ALGOLIA_ARTIFACT="algolia-indexes-${INSTANCE_ID_UPPER}.zip" # Print the values echo "INSTANCE_ID_UPPER: $INSTANCE_ID_UPPER" echo "ARTIFACT: $ARTIFACT" echo "ALGOLIA_ARTIFACT: $ALGOLIA_ARTIFACT" # Set the environment variables and outputs echo "INSTANCE_ID_UPPER=$INSTANCE_ID_UPPER" >> $GITHUB_ENV echo "ARTIFACT=$ARTIFACT" >> $GITHUB_ENV echo "ALGOLIA_ARTIFACT=$ALGOLIA_ARTIFACT" >> $GITHUB_ENV echo "artifact=$ARTIFACT" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT echo "algolia_artifact=$ALGOLIA_ARTIFACT" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT - name: Build docs using Writerside Docker builder uses: JetBrains/writerside-github-action@v4 with: instance: ${{ env.INSTANCE }} artifact: ${{ env.ARTIFACT }} docker-version: ${{ env.DOCKER_VERSION }} - name: Save artifact with build results uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4 with: name: docs path: | artifacts/${{ env.ARTIFACT }} artifacts/report.json artifacts/${{ env.ALGOLIA_ARTIFACT }} retention-days: 7 test: needs: build runs-on: ubuntu-latest steps: - name: Download artifacts uses: actions/download-artifact@v4 with: name: docs path: artifacts - name: Test documentation uses: JetBrains/writerside-checker-action@v1 with: instance: ${{ env.INSTANCE }} deploy: environment: name: github-pages url: ${{ steps.deployment.outputs.page_url }} needs: [build, test] runs-on: ubuntu-latest steps: - name: Download artifacts uses: actions/download-artifact@v4 with: name: docs path: artifacts - name: Unzip artifact run: unzip -O UTF-8 -qq "artifacts/${{ needs.build.outputs.artifact }}" -d dir - name: Setup Pages uses: actions/configure-pages@v4 - name: Package and upload Pages artifact uses: actions/upload-pages-artifact@v3 with: path: dir - name: Deploy to GitHub Pages id: deployment uses: actions/deploy-pages@v4

After you commit and push this workflow, the deploy job will run only if both build and test finish successfully, and it consists of the following steps:

Download the docs artifact using the actions/download-artifact@v4 action.
Unzip the website archive using the unzip command.
Enable GitHub Pages using the actions/configure-pages@v4 action.
Package and upload an artifact that can be deployed to GitHub Pages using the actions/upload-pages-artifact@v3 action.
Deploy the artifact to GitHub Pages using the actions/deploy-pages@v4.

If the workflow is successful, the deploy job will output the URL to the published documentation.

Upload search indexes

If you also configure Algolia search, you can modify the workflow further and add the publish-indexes job that will automatically update the search indexes after a successful deployment.

You will also need to add Algolia indexes to the docs artifact that the build job produces, and specify the following additional environment variables:

env.ALGOLIA_APP_NAME: Algolia application ID
env.ALGOLIA_INDEX_NAME: Name of Algolia index
env.CONFIG_JSON_PRODUCT: Help instance ID from the tree file or the value of the web-path attribute specified in writerside.cfg if it is different from the ID
env.CONFIG_JSON_VERSION: Help instance version (usually the same as the branch name) specified in writerside.cfg

For example:

  ALGOLIA_APP_NAME: 'NLAGB2LZHU'
  ALGOLIA_INDEX_NAME: 'MY_INDEX'
  CONFIG_JSON_PRODUCT: 'HI'
  CONFIG_JSON_VERSION: '1.0'

Here is how it all comes together in a single workflow file:

name: Build documentation on: push: branches: ["main"] workflow_dispatch: permissions: contents: read id-token: write pages: write env: INSTANCE: 'Writerside/hi' DOCKER_VERSION: '243.22562' ALGOLIA_APP_NAME: 'NLAGB2LZHU' ALGOLIA_INDEX_NAME: 'MY_INDEX' CONFIG_JSON_PRODUCT: 'HI' CONFIG_JSON_VERSION: '1.0' jobs: build: runs-on: ubuntu-latest outputs: algolia_artifact: ${{ steps.define-ids.outputs.algolia_artifact }} artifact: ${{ steps.define-ids.outputs.artifact }} steps: - name: Checkout repository uses: actions/checkout@v4 with: fetch-depth: 0 - name: Define instance id and artifacts id: define-ids run: | INSTANCE=${INSTANCE#*/} INSTANCE_ID_UPPER=$(echo "$INSTANCE" | tr '[:lower:]' '[:upper:]') ARTIFACT="webHelp${INSTANCE_ID_UPPER}2-all.zip" ALGOLIA_ARTIFACT="algolia-indexes-${INSTANCE_ID_UPPER}.zip" # Print the values echo "INSTANCE_ID_UPPER: $INSTANCE_ID_UPPER" echo "ARTIFACT: $ARTIFACT" echo "ALGOLIA_ARTIFACT: $ALGOLIA_ARTIFACT" # Set the environment variables and outputs echo "INSTANCE_ID_UPPER=$INSTANCE_ID_UPPER" >> $GITHUB_ENV echo "ARTIFACT=$ARTIFACT" >> $GITHUB_ENV echo "ALGOLIA_ARTIFACT=$ALGOLIA_ARTIFACT" >> $GITHUB_ENV echo "artifact=$ARTIFACT" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT echo "algolia_artifact=$ALGOLIA_ARTIFACT" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT - name: Build docs using Writerside Docker builder uses: JetBrains/writerside-github-action@v4 with: instance: ${{ env.INSTANCE }} artifact: ${{ env.ARTIFACT }} docker-version: ${{ env.DOCKER_VERSION }} - name: Save artifact with build results uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4 with: name: docs path: | artifacts/${{ env.ARTIFACT }} artifacts/report.json artifacts/${{ env.ALGOLIA_ARTIFACT }} retention-days: 7 test: needs: build runs-on: ubuntu-latest steps: - name: Download artifacts uses: actions/download-artifact@v4 with: name: docs path: artifacts - name: Test documentation uses: JetBrains/writerside-checker-action@v1 with: instance: ${{ env.INSTANCE }} deploy: environment: name: github-pages url: ${{ steps.deployment.outputs.page_url }} needs: [build, test] runs-on: ubuntu-latest steps: - name: Download artifacts uses: actions/download-artifact@v4 with: name: docs path: artifacts - name: Unzip artifact run: unzip -O UTF-8 -qq "artifacts/${{ needs.build.outputs.artifact }}" -d dir - name: Setup Pages uses: actions/configure-pages@v4 - name: Package and upload Pages artifact uses: actions/upload-pages-artifact@v3 with: path: dir - name: Deploy to GitHub Pages id: deployment uses: actions/deploy-pages@v4 publish-indexes: needs: [build, test, deploy] runs-on: ubuntu-latest container: image: registry.jetbrains.team/p/writerside/builder/algolia-publisher:2.0.32-3 steps: - name: Download artifact uses: actions/download-artifact@v4 with: name: docs path: artifacts - name: Unzip Algolia artifact run: unzip -O UTF-8 -qq "artifacts/${{ needs.build.outputs.algolia_artifact }}" -d algolia-indexes - name: Update Algolia Index run: | if [ -z "${{ secrets.ALGOLIA_KEY }}" ]; then echo "ALGOLIA_KEY secret is not set in GitHub Secrets" exit 1 else env "algolia-key=${{ secrets.ALGOLIA_KEY }}" java -jar /opt/builder/help-publication-agent.jar \ update-index \ --application-name ${{ env.ALGOLIA_APP_NAME }} \ --index-name ${{ env.ALGOLIA_INDEX_NAME }} \ --product ${{ env.CONFIG_JSON_PRODUCT }} \ --version ${{ env.CONFIG_JSON_VERSION }} \ --index-directory algolia-indexes/ \ 2>&1 | tee algolia-update-index-log.txt fi

Build to PDF

You can configure a separate workflow or a job in an existing workflow to produce a PDF artifact. Here is an example of a separate workflow with a build-pdf job that produces a PDF:

name: Build to PDF on: push: branches: ["main"] workflow_dispatch: env: INSTANCE: 'Writerside/hi' DOCKER_VERSION: '243.22562' PDF: 'PDF.xml' jobs: build-pdf: runs-on: ubuntu-latest steps: - name: Checkout repository uses: actions/checkout@v4 with: fetch-depth: 0 - name: Define instance ID run: | INSTANCE_ID="${INSTANCE#*/}" INSTANCE_ID_UPPER=$(echo "$INSTANCE_ID" | tr '[:lower:]' '[:upper:]') echo "INSTANCE_ID_UPPER=$INSTANCE_ID_UPPER" >> $GITHUB_ENV echo "Extracted ID: $INSTANCE_ID_UPPER" - name: Build Writerside docs using Docker uses: JetBrains/writerside-github-action@v4 with: instance: ${{ env.INSTANCE }} docker-version: ${{ env.DOCKER_VERSION }} pdf: ${{ env.PDF }} - name: Upload artifact uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4 with: name: artifact path: | artifacts/pdfSource${{ env.INSTANCE_ID_UPPER }}.pdf artifacts/pdfSource${{ env.INSTANCE_ID_UPPER }}.html retention-days: 7

Writerside Help

Set up a GitHub Actions workflow