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Contributing to InfluxData Documentation

Sign the InfluxData CLA

The InfluxData Contributor License Agreement (CLA) is part of the legal framework for the open-source ecosystem that protects both you and InfluxData. In order to contribute to any InfluxData project, you must first sign the CLA.

Sign the InfluxData (CLA)

Make suggested updates

Fork and clone InfluxData Documentation Repository

Fork this repository and clone it to your local machine.

Run the documentation locally (optional)

To run the documentation locally, follow the instructions provided in the README.

Make your changes

Make your suggested changes being sure to follow the style and formatting guidelines outline below.

Submit a pull request

Push your changes up to your forked repository, then create a new pull request.

Style & Formatting

Markdown

All of our documentation is written in Markdown.

Semantic Linefeeds

Use semantic linefeeds. Separating each sentence with a new line makes it easy to parse diffs with the human eye.

Diff without semantic linefeeds:

-Data is taking off. Those data are time series. You need a database that specializes in time series. You should check out InfluxDB.
+Data is taking off. Those data are time series. You need a database that specializes in time series. You need InfluxDB.

Diff with semantic linefeeds:

Data is taking off.
Those data are time series.
You need a database that specializes in time series.
-You should check out InfluxDB.
+You need InfluxDB.

Page frontmatter

Every documentation page includes frontmatter which specifies information about the page. Frontmatter populates variables in page templates and the site's navigation menu.

title: # Title of the page used in the page's h1
seotitle: # Page title used in the html <head> title and used in search engine results
description: # Page description displayed in search engine results
menu:
  v2_0:
    name: # Article name that only appears in the left nav
    parent: # Specifies a parent group and nests navigation items
weight: # Determines sort order in both the nav tree and in article lists.
draft: # If true, will not render page on build
enterprise_all: # If true, specifies the doc as a whole is specific to InfluxDB Enterprise
enterprise_some: # If true, specifies the doc includes some content specific to InfluxDB Enterprise
v2.x/tags: # Tags specific to each version (replace .x" with the appropriate minor version )

Title usage

`title`

The title frontmatter populates each page's h1 header. It shouldn't be overly long, but should set the context for users coming from outside sources.

`seotitle`

The seotitle frontmatter populates each page's HTML title attribute. Search engines use this in search results (not the page's h1) and therefore it should be keyword optimized.

`menu > name`

The name attribute under the menu frontmatter determines the text used in each page's link in the site navigation. It should be short and assume the context of its parent if it has one.

Page Weights

To ensure pages are sorted both by weight and their depth in the directory structure, pages should be weighted in "levels." All top level pages are weighted 1-99. The next level is 101-199. Then 201-299 and so on.

Note: _index.md files should be weighted one level up from the other .md files in the same directory.

Article headings

Use only h2-h6 headings in markdown content. h1 headings act as the page title and are populated automatically from the title frontmatter. h2-h6 headings act as section headings.

Notes and warnings

Shortcodes are available for formatting notes and warnings in each article:

{{% note %}}
Insert note markdown content here.
{{% /note %}}

{{% warn %}}
Insert warning markdown content here.
{{% /warn %}}

Enterprise Content

Many articles are unique to InfluxDB enterprise or at least contain some information specific to InfluxDB Enterprise. There are frontmatter options and an enterprise shortcode that help to properly identify this content.

All content is Enterprise-specific

If all content in an article is Enterprise-specific, set the enterprise_all frontmatter to true.

enterprise_all: true

This will display a message at the top of page indicating that the things discussed are unique to InfluxDB Enterprise.

Only some content is Enterprise-specific

If only some content in the article is enterprise specific, set the enterprise_some frontmatter to true.

enterprise_some: true

This will display a message at the top of page indicating some things are unique to InfluxDB Enterprise. To format Enterprise-specific content, wrap it in the {{% enterprise %}} shortcode:

{{% enterprise %}}
Insert enterprise-specific markdown content here.
{{% /enterprise %}}

Tabbed Content

Shortcodes are available for creating "tabbed" content (content that is changed by a users' selection). Ther following three must be used:

{{< tabs-wrapper >}}
This shortcode creates a wrapper or container for the tabbed content. All UI interactions are limited to the scope of each container. If you have more than one "group" of tabbed content in a page, each needs its own tabs-wrapper. This shortcode must be closed with {{< /tabs-wrapper >}}.

Note: The < and > characters used in this shortcode indicate that the contents should be processed as HTML.

{{% tabs %}}
This shortcode creates a container for buttons that control the display of tabbed content. It should contain simple markdown links with anonymous anchors (#). The link text is used as the button text. This shortcode must be closed with {{% /tabs %}}.

Note: The % characters used in this shortcode indicate that the contents should be processed as Markdown.

{{% tab-content %}}
This shortcode creates a container for a content block. Each content block in the tab group needs to be wrapped in this shortcode. The number of tab-content blocks must match the number of links provided in the tabs shortcode This shortcode must be closed with {{% /tab-content %}}.

Note: The % characters used in this shortcode indicate that the contents should be processed as Markdown.

Example tabbed content group

{{< tabs-wrapper >}}

{{% tabs %}}
[Button text for tab 1](#)
[Button text for tab 2](#)
{{% /tabs %}}

{{% tab-content %}}
Markdown content for tab 1.
{{% /tab-content %}}

{{% tab-content %}}
Markdown content for tab 2.
{{% /tab-content %}}

{{< /tabs-wrapper >}}

Tabbed code blocks

Shortcodes are also available for tabbed code blocks primarily used to give users the option to choose between different languages and syntax. The shortcode structure is the same as above, but the shortcode names are different:

{{< code-tabs-wrapper >}}
{{% code-tabs %}}
{{% code-tab-content %}}

{{< code-tabs-wrapper >}}

{{% code-tabs %}}
[Flux](#)
[InfluxQL](#)
{{% /code-tabs %}}

{{% code-tab-content %}}
```js
data = from(bucket: "telegraf/autogen")
  |> range(start: -15m)
  |> filter(fn: (r) =>
    r._measurement == "mem" AND
    r._field == "used_percent"
  )
```
{{% /code-tab-content %}}

{{% code-tab-content %}}
```sql
SELECT "used_percent"
FROM "telegraf"."autogen"."mem"
WHERE time > now() - 15m
```
{{% /code-tab-content %}}

{{< /code-tabs-wrapper >}}

High-resolution images

In many cases, screenshots included in the docs are taken from high-resolution (retina) screens. Because of this, the actual pixel dimension is 2x larger than it needs to be and is rendered 2x bigger than it should be. The following shortcode automatically sets a fixed width on the image using half of its actual pixel dimension. This preserves the detail of the image and renders it at a size where there should be little to no "blur" cause by browser image resizing.

{{< img-hd src="/path/to/image" alt="Alternate title" />}}

Notes

This should only be used on screenshots takes from high-resolution screens.
The src should be relative to the static directory.
Image widths are limited to the width of the article content container and will scale accordingly, even with the width explicitly set.

Truncated content blocks

In some cases, it may be appropriate to shorten or truncate blocks of content. Use cases include long examples of output data or tall images. The following shortcode truncates blocks of content and allows users to opt into to seeing the full content block.

{{% truncate %}}
Truncated markdown content here.
{{% /truncate %}}

Generate a list of children articles

Section landing pages often contain just a list of articles with links and descriptions for each. This can be cumbersome to maintain as content is added. To automate the listing of articles in a section, use the {{< children >}} shortcode.

{{< children >}}

The children shortcode can also be used to list only "section" articles (those with their own children), or only "page" articles (those with no children) using the show argument:

{{< children show="sections" >}}
<!-- OR -->
{{< children show="pages" >}}

By default, it displays both sections and pages.

There is also a special use-case designed for listing Flux functions using the type argument:

{{< children type="functions" >}}

Reference content

The InfluxDB documentation is "task-based," meaning content primarily focuses on what a user is doing, not what they are using. However, there is a need to document tools and other things that don't necessarily fit in the task-based style. This is referred to as "reference content."

Reference content is styled just as the rest of the InfluxDB documentation. The only difference is the menu reference in the page's frontmatter. When defining the menu for reference content, use the following pattern:

# Pattern
menu:
  v<major-version-number>_<minor-version-number>_ref:
    # ...

# Example
menu:
  v2_0_ref:
    # ...

Image naming conventions

Save images using the following naming format: version-context-description.png. For example, 2-0-visualizations-line-graph.png or 2-0-tasks-add-new.png. Specify a version other than 2.0 only if the image is specific to that version.

New Versions of InfluxDB

Version bumps occur regularly in the documentation. Each minor version has its own directory with unique content. Patch versions within a minor version are updated in place.

To add a new minor version, go through the steps below. This example assumes v2.0 is the most recent version and v2.1 is the new version.

Ensure your master branch is up to date:
```
git checkout master
git pull
```
Create a new branch for the new minor version:
```
git checkout -b influxdb-2.1
```

Duplicate the most recent version's content directory:

# From the root of the project
cp content/v2.0 content/v2.1

Find and replace all instances of the old version number with the new version (only within the new version directory). Be sure to find and replace both the following forms of the version number:
```
v2.0 -> v2.1
v2_0 -> v2_1
```

Add the new version tag taxonomy to the config.toml in the root of the project.

[taxonomies]
  "v2.0/tag" = "v2.0/tags"
  "v2.1/tag" = "v2.1/tags"

Update the latest_version in data/version.yaml:
```
latest_version: v2.1
```
Commit the changes and push the new branch to Github.

These changes lay the foundation for the new version. All other changes specific to the new version should be merged into this branch. Once the necessary changes are in place and the new version is released, merge the new branch into master.

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