Using Plugins

The Docusaurus core doesn't provide any feature of its own. All features are delegated to individual plugins: the docs feature provided by the docs plugin; the blog feature provided by the blog plugin; or individual pages provided by the pages plugin. If there are no plugins installed, the site won't contain any routes.

You may not need to install common plugins one-by-one though: they can be distributed as a bundle in a preset. For most users, plugins are configured through the preset configuration.

We maintain a list of official plugins, but the community has also created some unofficial plugins. If you want to add any feature: autogenerating doc pages, executing custom scripts, integrating other services... be sure to check out the list: someone may have implemented it for you!

If you are feeling energetic, you can also read the plugin guide or plugin method references for how to make a plugin yourself.

Installing a plugin

A plugin is usually an npm package, so you install them like other npm packages using npm.

npm

npm install --save docusaurus-plugin-name

Yarn

yarn add docusaurus-plugin-name

Then you add it in your site's docusaurus.config.js's plugins option:

docusaurus.config.js

module.exports = {
  // ...
  plugins: ['@docusaurus/plugin-content-pages'],
};

Docusaurus can also load plugins from your local directory, with something like the following:

docusaurus.config.js

const path = require('path');

module.exports = {
  // ...
  plugins: [path.resolve(__dirname, '/path/to/docusaurus-local-plugin')],
};

Configuring plugins

For the most basic usage of plugins, you can provide just the plugin name or the absolute path to the plugin.

However, plugins can have options specified by wrapping the name and an options object in a two-member tuple inside your config. This style is usually called "Babel Style".

docusaurus.config.js

module.exports = {
  // ...
  plugins: [
    [
      '@docusaurus/plugin-xxx',
      {
        /* options */
      },
    ],
  ],
};

Example:

docusaurus.config.js

module.exports = {
  plugins: [
    // Basic usage.
    '@docusaurus/plugin-debug',

    // With options object (babel style)
    [
      '@docusaurus/plugin-sitemap',
      {
        changefreq: 'weekly',
      },
    ],
  ],
};

Multi-instance plugins and plugin ids

All Docusaurus content plugins can support multiple plugin instances. For example, it may be useful to have multiple docs plugin instances or multiple blogs. It is required to assign a unique id to each plugin instance, and by default, the plugin id is default.

docusaurus.config.js

module.exports = {
  plugins: [
    [
      '@docusaurus/plugin-content-docs',
      {
        id: 'docs-1',
        // other options
      },
    ],
    [
      '@docusaurus/plugin-content-docs',
      {
        id: 'docs-2',
        // other options
      },
    ],
  ],
};

note

At most one plugin instance can be the "default plugin instance", by omitting the id attribute, or using id: 'default'.

Using themes

Themes are loaded in the exact same way as plugins—the line between them is blurry. From the consumer perspective, the themes and plugins entries are interchangeable when installing and configuring a plugin. The only nuance is that themes are loaded after plugins, and it's possible for a theme to override a plugin's default theme components.

tip

The themes and plugins options lead to different shorthand resolutions, so if you want to take advantage of shorthands, be sure to use the right entry!

docusaurus.config.js

module.exports = {
  // ...
  themes: ['@docusaurus/theme-classic', '@docusaurus/theme-live-codeblock'],
};

Using presets

A preset is usually an npm package, so you install them like other npm packages using npm.

npm

npm install --save @docusaurus/preset-classic

Yarn

yarn add @docusaurus/preset-classic

Then, add it in your site's docusaurus.config.js's presets option:

docusaurus.config.js

module.exports = {
  // ...
  presets: ['@docusaurus/preset-classic'],
};

To load presets from your local directory, specify how to resolve them:

docusaurus.config.js

const path = require('path');

module.exports = {
  // ...
  presets: [path.resolve(__dirname, '/path/to/docusaurus-local-preset')],
};

Presets are a shorthand function to add plugins and themes to your Docusaurus config. For example, you can specify a preset that includes the following themes and plugins:

/path/to/docusaurus-local-preset

module.exports = function preset(context, opts = {}) {
  return {
    themes: [['docusaurus-theme-awesome', opts.theme]],
    plugins: [
      // Using three docs plugins at the same time!
      // Assigning a unique ID for each without asking the user to do it
      ['@docusaurus/plugin-content-docs', {...opts.docs1, id: 'docs1'}],
      ['@docusaurus/plugin-content-docs', {...opts.docs2, id: 'docs2'}],
      ['@docusaurus/plugin-content-docs', {...opts.docs3, id: 'docs3'}],
    ],
  };
};

then in your Docusaurus config, you may configure the preset instead:

docusaurus.config.js

module.exports = {
  presets: [
    [
      path.resolve(__dirname, '/path/to/docusaurus-local-preset'),
      {
        theme: {hello: 'world'},
        docs1: {path: '/docs'},
        docs2: {path: '/community'},
        docs3: {path: '/api'},
      },
    ],
  ],
};

This is equivalent of doing:

docusaurus.config.js

module.exports = {
  themes: [['docusaurus-theme-awesome', {hello: 'world'}]],
  plugins: [
    ['@docusaurus/plugin-content-docs', {id: 'docs1', path: '/docs'}],
    ['@docusaurus/plugin-content-docs', {id: 'docs2', path: '/community'}],
    ['@docusaurus/plugin-content-docs', {id: 'docs3', path: '/api'}],
  ],
};

This is especially useful when some plugins and themes are intended to be used together. You can even link their options together, e.g. pass one option to multiple plugins.

@docusaurus/preset-classic

The classic preset is shipped by default to new Docusaurus website created with create-docusaurus. It is a set of plugins and themes.

Themes	Plugins
@docusaurus/theme-classic	@docusaurus/plugin-content-docs
@docusaurus/theme-search-algolia	@docusaurus/plugin-content-blog
	@docusaurus/plugin-content-pages
	@docusaurus/plugin-debug
	@docusaurus/plugin-google-analytics
	@docusaurus/plugin-google-gtag
	@docusaurus/plugin-sitemap

To specify plugin options individually, you can provide the necessary fields to certain plugins, i.e. customCss for @docusaurus/theme-classic, pass them in the preset field, like this:

docusaurus.config.js

module.exports = {
  presets: [
    [
      '@docusaurus/preset-classic',
      {
        // Debug defaults to true in dev, false in prod
        debug: undefined,
        // Will be passed to @docusaurus/theme-classic.
        theme: {
          customCss: [require.resolve('./src/css/custom.css')],
        },
        // Will be passed to @docusaurus/plugin-content-docs (false to disable)
        docs: {},
        // Will be passed to @docusaurus/plugin-content-blog (false to disable)
        blog: {},
        // Will be passed to @docusaurus/plugin-content-pages (false to disable)
        pages: {},
        // Will be passed to @docusaurus/plugin-content-sitemap (false to disable)
        sitemap: {},
        // Will be passed to @docusaurus/plugin-google-gtag (only enabled when explicitly specified)
        gtag: {},
        // Will be passed to @docusaurus/plugin-google-analytics (only enabled when explicitly specified)
        googleAnalytics: {},
      },
    ],
  ],
};

In addition to these plugins and themes, @docusaurus/theme-classic adds remark-admonitions as a remark plugin to @docusaurus/plugin-content-blog and @docusaurus/plugin-content-docs.

The admonitions key will be passed as the options to remark-admonitions. Passing false will prevent the plugin from being added to MDX.

docusaurus.config.js

module.exports = {
  presets: [
    [
      '@docusaurus/preset-classic',
      {
        docs: {
          // options for remark-admonitions
          admonitions: {},
        },
      },
    ],
  ],
};

Module shorthands

Docusaurus supports shorthands for plugins, themes, and presets. When it sees a plugin / theme / preset name, it tries to load one of the following, in that order:

• [name]
• @docusaurus/[moduleType]-[name]
• docusaurus-[moduleType]-[name],

where moduleType is one of 'preset', 'theme', 'plugin', depending on which field the module name is declared in. The first module name that's successfully found is loaded.

If the name is scoped (beginning with @), the name is first split into scope and package name by the first slash:

@scope
^----^
 scope  (no name!)

@scope/awesome
^----^ ^-----^
 scope   name

@scope/awesome/main
^----^ ^----------^
 scope     name

If the name is not specified, {scope}/docusaurus-{type} is loaded. Otherwise, the following are attempted:

• [scope]/[name]
• [scope]/docusaurus-[moduleType]-[name]

Below are some examples, for a plugin registered in the plugins field. Note that unlike ESLint or Babel where a consistent naming convention for plugins is mandated, Docusaurus permits greater naming freedom, so the resolutions are not certain, but follows the priority defined above.

Declaration	May be resolved as
awesome	docusaurus-plugin-awesome
sitemap	@docusaurus/plugin-sitemap
@my-company	@my-company/docusaurus-plugin (the only possible resolution!)
@my-company/awesome	@my-company/docusaurus-plugin-awesome
@my-company/awesome/web	@my-company/docusaurus-plugin-awesome/web