Quick start

This walks you through the smallest useful docs site: scaffold, add one page, build, serve. Five minutes.

1. Scaffold#

verne init my-docs --yes
cd my-docs

--yes skips the interactive prompts and uses sensible defaults. Pass --title, --base-url, --locale, --tagline if you want to set them up-front; everything else is editable in verne.yaml afterwards.

Tip

Run verne init --help to see every flag. The CLI is the source of truth — what’s documented here may have grown by the time you read it.

2. Switch to this theme#

The default verne init ships an editorial / blog theme. To use this one:

mkdir -p themes
cp -R /path/to/Verne/docs/themes/vernedocs themes/

Then point verne.yaml’s theme: key at it:

theme: "vernedocs"

3. Add a page#

mkdir -p content/guides
cat > content/guides/hello.md <<'EOF'
---
title: "Hello"
description: "A first page in the docs."
---

This is the page body. Markdown works here — headings, lists, code,
blockquotes, tables.

## A subhead

Paragraph under a subhead. The right-rail "On this page" lists every
`##` and `###` heading automatically.
EOF

4. Wire it into the sidebar#

Open verne.yaml and add an entry under summary::

summary:
  - header: "Guides"
  - title: "Hello"
    url: "/guides/hello/"

5. Build and preview#

verne server --open

verne server rebuilds, binds 127.0.0.1:1313, and --open launches your default browser at the index page.

That’s it. Add more .md files, drop entries into summary:, and the sidebar stays in sync. When you’re ready to ship, run verne build and deploy public/ to any static host — see Deploying.

Note

The summary: block in verne.yaml is the only thing that drives the sidebar — there is no auto-discovery. New pages become visible only after you add an entry pointing at them.