Select a publishing engine

All four engines consume the same Markdown source, but their native tooling and configuration differ.

MkDocs

MkDocs is the default and the lightest choice for this workflow. You must install MkDocs and the theme or plugins required by your configuration using the system package tools - it is not done automatically by this module. The backend accepts command, strict, address, and output. Strict builds are enabled by default.

A root mkdocs.yml is used directly if it exists. Another file named by config is normally inherited by a temporary configuration which supplies the assembled docs_dir, output directory, and navigation. Set config_mode to direct only when the authored file deliberately owns those paths as well.

VitePress

VitePress runs in a temporary npm project. Set npm to another npm executable, version to a particular VitePress version, and host, port, or output as needed. An authored configuration named by config keeps its original location so its relative imports still work.

Docusaurus

Docusaurus also runs in a temporary npm project and accepts npm, version, host, port, and output. The generated project uses the classic preset, disables the blog, and places the documents at the site root.

Astro Starlight

Starlight accepts npm, astro_version, starlight_version, host, port, and output. The generated project includes a Markdown link resolver so links to mirrored module pages become the routes that Starlight actually emits. An authored Astro configuration is wrapped to retain this resolver; if it supplies a Markdown processor, that processor must be unified.