Make mdBook dependency optional (#14548), fix manpage links#14727
Merged
Ericson2314 merged 3 commits intoNixOS:masterfrom Dec 6, 2025
Merged
Make mdBook dependency optional (#14548), fix manpage links#14727Ericson2314 merged 3 commits intoNixOS:masterfrom
Ericson2314 merged 3 commits intoNixOS:masterfrom
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Add standalone markdown preprocessor to generate manpages without requiring
mdbook's Rust toolchain. This removes a significant build dependency for
manpage generation while keeping the HTML manual (mdbook) working unchanged.
Changes:
- Add expand-includes.py: Python 3 script that recursively expands
{{#include}} directives, resolves @docroot@ to nix.dev URLs, and handles
@generated@/ paths for build-generated files
- Update render-manpage.sh: Replace mdbook-based implementation with
standalone version that uses expand-includes.py + lowdown
- Update meson.build: All 134 manpage targets now use standalone renderer
with proper dependencies (expand-includes.py, experimental-features-shortlist)
- Fix nix-hash.md: Remove extra parenthesis in markdown link syntax
Benefits:
- No mdbook/Rust toolchain required for manpage builds
- Manpages contain nix.dev/latest URLs instead of broken relative paths
- Fixes bug where mdbook didn't expand experimental-features-shortlist.md
- 98.5% identical output to mdbook (2 files differ, both acceptable)
All 134 manpages (131 section 1, 2 section 5, 1 section 8) build successfully.
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Ericson2314
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Dec 6, 2025
Add configurable documentation URLs that change based on whether this is
an official release or development build:
- Nix builds:
- Development (officialRelease = false): Use /latest/ URLs
- Official releases (officialRelease = true): Use versioned URLs with
MAJOR.MINOR only (e.g., /2.33/ instead of /2.33.0/)
- Plain meson builds: Default to versioned URLs (official-release = true)
Changes:
- Add --doc-url parameter to expand-includes.py
- Add meson option 'official-release' (defaults to true for Meson builds)
- Compute doc_url in meson.build based on version and official-release
- Forward Nix officialRelease variable to Meson in package.nix
- Update render-manpage.sh to pass doc-url parameter
This allows distros (Fedora, etc.) to have stable versioned URLs by default,
while Nix development builds point to /latest/ for up-to-date documentation.
Add `html-manual` Meson option to allow building manpages without the HTML manual, removing the mdbook dependency for manpage-only builds. Changes: - Add `html-manual` Meson option (default: true) - Make HTML manual build conditional in meson.build - Add `buildHtmlManual` parameter to package.nix - Conditional outputs: ["out" "man"] when enabled, ["out"] when disabled - Make mdbook/rsync/json-schema-for-humans dependencies conditional - Add `nix-manual-manpages-only` package variant This allows systems that only need manpages to avoid the mdbook build dependency while preserving full functionality for HTML manual builds.
Ericson2314
approved these changes
Dec 6, 2025
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@roberth |
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Motivation
The first commit prepares the codebase for
mdbookto be actually optional, because the manpages were previously derived from mdBook markdown output, which I found both surprising and explainable.It reinvents the wheel a bit, but that's what you get for picking markdown; a better solution did not exist.
The second commit is nice side catch: URLs in the manpages now refer to the website, instead of broken relative paths.
The third commit implements #14548.
Context
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