# Configuration

Guide to all available configuration settings.

## Introduction

Project settings are configured by default using a YAML configuration file in the project directory named `mkdocs.yml`. You can specify another path for it by using the `-f`/`--config-file` option (see `mkdocs build --help`).

As a minimum, this configuration file must contain the `site_name`. All other settings are optional.

## Project information

### site_name

This is a required setting, and should be a string that is used as the main title for the project documentation. For example:

    site_name: Marshmallow Generator

When rendering the theme this setting will be passed as the `site_name` context variable.

### site_url

Set the canonical URL of the site. This will add a `link` tag with the `canonical` URL to the `head` section of each HTML page. If the 'root' of the MkDocs site will be within a subdirectory of a domain, be sure to include that subdirectory in the setting (`https://example.com/foo/`).

This setting is also used for `mkdocs serve`: the server will be mounted onto a path taken from the path component of the URL, e.g. `some/page.md` will be served from `http://127.0.0.1:8000/foo/some/page/` to mimic the expected remote layout.

default: `null`

### repo_url

When set, provides a link to your repository (GitHub, Bitbucket, GitLab, ...) on each page.

    repo_url: https://github.com/example/repository/

default: `null`

### repo_name

When set, provides the name for the link to your repository on each page.

default: `'GitHub'`, `'Bitbucket'` or `'GitLab'` if the `repo_url` matches those domains, otherwise the hostname from the `repo_url`.

### edit_uri

The path from the base `repo_url` to the docs directory when directly viewing a page, accounting for specifics of the repository host (e.g. GitHub, Bitbucket, etc), the branch, and the docs directory itself. MkDocs concatenates `repo_url` and `edit_uri`, and appends the input path of the page.

When set, and if your theme supports it, provides a link directly to the page in your source repository. This makes it easier to find and edit the source for the page. If `repo_url` is not set, this option is ignored. On some themes, setting this option may cause an edit link to be used in place of a repository link. Other themes may show both links.

The `edit_uri` supports query ('?') and fragment ('#') characters. For repository hosts that use a query or a fragment to access the files, the `edit_uri` might be set as follows. (Note the `?` and `#` in the URI...)

    # Query string example
    edit_uri: '?query=root/path/docs/'

    # Hash fragment example
    edit_uri: '#root/path/docs/'

For other repository hosts, simply specify the relative path to the docs directory.

    # Query string example
    edit_uri: root/path/docs/

For example, having this config:

    repo_url: https://example.com/project/repo
    edit_uri: blob/main/docs/

means that a page named 'foo/bar.md' will have its edit link lead to:
https://example.com/project/repo/blob/main/docs/foo/bar.md

`edit_uri` can actually be just an absolute URL, not necessarily relative to `repo_url`, so this can achieve the same result:

    edit_uri: https://example.com/project/repo/blob/main/docs/

For more flexibility, see edit_uri_template below.

Note

On a few known hosts (specifically GitHub, Bitbucket and GitLab), the `edit_uri` is derived from the 'repo_url' and does not need to be set manually. Simply defining a `repo_url` will automatically populate the `edit_uri` configs setting.

For example, for a GitHub- or GitLab-hosted repository, the `edit_uri` would be automatically set as `edit/master/docs/` (Note the `edit` path and `master` branch).

For a Bitbucket-hosted repository, the equivalent `edit_uri` would be automatically set as `src/default/docs/` (note the `src` path and `default` branch).

To use a different URI than the default (for example a different branch), simply set the `edit_uri` to your desired string. If you do not want any "edit URL link" displayed on your pages, then set `edit_uri` to an empty string to disable the automatic setting.

Warning

On GitHub and GitLab, the default "edit" path (`edit/master/docs/`) opens the page in the online editor. This functionality requires that the user have and be logged in to a GitHub/GitLab account. Otherwise, the user will be redirected to a login/signup page. Alternatively, use the "blob" path (`blob/master/docs/`) to open a read-only view, which supports anonymous access.

default: `edit/master/docs/` for GitHub and GitLab repos or `src/default/docs/` for a Bitbucket repo, if `repo_url` matches those domains, otherwise `null`

### edit_uri_template

The more flexible variant of edit_uri. These two are equivalent:

    edit_uri: 'blob/main/docs/'
    edit_uri_template: 'blob/main/docs/{path}'

(they are also mutually exclusive -- don't specify both).

Starting from here, you can change the positioning or formatting of the path, in case the default behavior of appending the path isn't enough.

The contents of `edit_uri_template` are normal Python format strings, with only these fields available:

- `{path}`, e.g. `foo/bar.md`
- `{path_noext}`, e.g. `foo/bar`

And the conversion flag `!q` is available, to percent-encode the field:

- `{path!q}`, e.g. `foo%2Fbar.md`

Suggested useful configurations:

- GitHub Wiki:
  (e.g. `https://github.com/project/repo/wiki/foo/bar/_edit`)

      repo_url: 'https://github.com/project/repo/wiki'
      edit_uri_template: '{path_noext}/_edit'

- BitBucket editor:
  (e.g. `https://bitbucket.org/project/repo/src/master/docs/foo/bar.md?mode=edit`)

      repo_url: 'https://bitbucket.org/project/repo/'
      edit_uri_template: 'src/master/docs/{path}?mode=edit'

- GitLab Static Site Editor:
  (e.g. `https://gitlab.com/project/repo/-/sse/master/docs%2Ffoo%2bar.md`)

      repo_url: 'https://gitlab.com/project/repo'
      edit_uri_template: '-/sse/master/docs%2F{path!q}'

- GitLab Web IDE:
  (e.g. `https://gitlab.com/-/ide/project/repo/edit/master/-/docs/foo/bar.md`)

      edit_uri_template: 'https://gitlab.com/-/ide/project/repo/edit/master/-/docs/{path}'

default: `null`

### site_description

Set the site description. This will add a meta tag to the generated HTML header.

default: `null`

### site_author

Set the name of the author. This will add a meta tag to the generated HTML header.

default: `null`

### copyright

Set the copyright information to be included in the documentation by the theme.

default: `null`

### remote_branch

Set the remote branch to commit to when using `gh-deploy` to deploy to GitHub Pages. This option can be overridden by a command line option in `gh-deploy`.

default: `gh-pages`

### remote_name

Set the remote name to push to when using `gh-deploy` to deploy to GitHub Pages. This option can be overridden by a command line option in `gh-deploy`.

default: `origin`

## Documentation layout

### nav

This setting is used to determine the format and layout of the global navigation for the site. A minimal navigation configuration could look like this:

    nav:
      - 'index.md'
      - 'about.md'

All paths in the navigation configuration must be relative to the `docs_dir` configuration option. See the section on configuring pages and navigation for a more detailed breakdown, including how to create sub-sections.

Navigation items may also include links to external sites. While titles are optional for internal links, they are required for external links. An external link may be a full URL or a relative URL. Any path which is not found in the files is assumed to be an external link. See the section about [Meta-Data] on how MkDocs determines the page title of a document.

    nav:
      - Introduction: 'index.md'
      - 'about.md'
      - 'Issue Tracker': 'https://example.com/'

In the above example, the first two items point to local files while the third points to an external site.

However, sometimes the MkDocs site is hosted in a subdirectory of a project's site and you may want to link to other parts of the same site without including the full domain. In that case, you may use an appropriate relative URL.

    site_url: https://example.com/foo/

    nav:
      - Home: '../'
      - 'User Guide': 'user-guide.md'
      - 'Bug Tracker': '/bugs/'

In the above example, two different styles of external links are used. First, note that the `site_url` indicates that the MkDocs site is hosted in the `/foo/` subdirectory of the domain. Therefore, the `Home` navigation item is a relative link that steps up one level to the server root and effectively points to `https://example.com/`. The `Bug Tracker` item uses an absolute path from the server root and effectively points to `https://example.com/bugs/`. Of course, the `User Guide` points to a local MkDocs page.

default: By default `nav` will contain an alphanumerically sorted, nested list of all the Markdown files found within the `docs_dir` and its sub-directories. Index files will always be listed first within a sub-section.

### exclude_docs

New in version 1.5

This config defines patterns of files (under `docs_dir`) to not be picked up into the built site.

Example:

    exclude_docs: |
      api-config.json    # A file with this name anywhere.
      drafts/            # A "drafts" directory anywhere.
      /requirements.txt  # Top-level "docs/requirements.txt".
      *.py               # Any file with this extension anywhere.
      !/foo/example.py   # But keep this particular file.

This follows the .gitignore pattern format.

Note that `mkdocs serve` does not follow this setting and instead displays excluded documents but with a "DRAFT" mark. To prevent this effect, you can run `mkdocs serve --clean`.

The following defaults are always implicitly prepended - to exclude dot-files (and directories) as well as the top-level `templates` directory:

    exclude_docs: |
      .*
      /templates/

So, in order to really start this config fresh, you'd need to specify a negated version of these entries first.

Otherwise you could for example opt only certain dot-files back into the site:

    exclude_docs: |
      !.assets  # Don't exclude '.assets' although all other '.*' are excluded

### not_in_nav

New in version 1.5

Note

This option does not actually exclude anything from the nav.

If you want to include some docs into the site but intentionally exclude them from the nav, normally MkDocs warns about this.

Adding such patterns of files (relative to `docs_dir`) into the `not_in_nav` config will prevent such warnings.

Example:

    nav:
      - Foo: foo.md
      - Bar: bar.md

    not_in_nav: |
      /private.md

As the previous option, this follows the .gitignore pattern format.

Note

Adding a given file to `exclude_docs` takes precedence over and implies `not_in_nav`.

### validation

New in version 1.5

Configure the strictness of MkDocs' diagnostic messages when validating links to documents.

This is a tree of configs, and for each one the value can be one of the three: `warn`, `info`, `ignore`. Which cause a logging message of the corresponding severity to be produced. The `warn` level is, of course, intended for use with `mkdocs build --strict` (where it becomes an error), which you can employ in continuous testing.

Defaults of this config as of MkDocs 1.5:

    validation:
      nav:
        omitted_files: info
        not_found: warn
        absolute_links: info
      links:
        not_found: warn
        absolute_links: info
        unrecognized_links: info

(Note: you shouldn't copy this whole example, because it only duplicates the defaults. Only individual items that differ should be set.)

The defaults of some of the behaviors already differ from MkDocs 1.4 and below - they were ignored before.

Configure MkDocs 1.5 to behave like MkDocs 1.4 and below (reduce strictness):

    validation:
      absolute_links: ignore
      unrecognized_links: ignore

Recommended settings for most sites (maximal strictness):

    validation:
      omitted_files: warn
      absolute_links: warn
      unrecognized_links: warn

Note how in the above examples we omitted the 'nav' and 'links' keys. Here `absolute_links:` means setting both `nav: absolute_links:` and `links: absolute_links:`.

Full list of values and examples of log messages that they can hide or make more prominent:

- `validation.nav.omitted_files`
  - "The following pages exist in the docs directory, but are not included in the "nav" configuration: ..."
- `validation.nav.not_found`
  - "A relative path to 'foo/bar.md' is included in the 'nav' configuration, which is not found in the documentation files."
  - "A reference to 'foo/bar.md' is included in the 'nav' configuration, but this file is excluded from the built site."
- `validation.nav.absolute_links`
  - "An absolute path to '/foo/bar.html' is included in the 'nav' configuration, which presumably points to an external resource."

- `validation.links.not_found`
  - "Doc file 'example.md' contains a relative link '../foo/bar.md', but the target is not found among documentation files."
  - "Doc file 'example.md' contains a link to 'foo/bar.md' which is excluded from the built site."
- `validation.links.absolute_links`
  - "Doc file 'example.md' contains an absolute link '/foo/bar.html', it was left as is. Did you mean 'foo/bar.md'?"
- `validation.links.unrecognized_links`
  - "Doc file 'example.md' contains an unrecognized relative link '../foo/bar/', it was left as is. Did you mean 'foo/bar.md'?"
  - "Doc file 'example.md' contains an unrecognized relative link 'mail\@example.com', it was left as is. Did you mean 'mailto:mail\@example.com'?"

## Build directories

### theme

Sets the theme and theme specific configuration of your documentation site. May be either a string or a set of key/value pairs.

If a string, it must be the string name of a known installed theme. For a list of available themes visit Choosing Your Theme.

An example set of key/value pairs might look something like this:

    theme:
      name: mkdocs
      locale: en
      custom_dir: my_theme_customizations/
      static_templates:
        - sitemap.html
      include_sidebar: false

If a set of key/value pairs, the following nested keys can be defined:

Block

#### name

The string name of a known installed theme. For a list of available themes visit Choosing Your Theme.

#### locale

A code representing the language of your site. See Localizing your theme for details.

#### custom_dir

A directory containing a custom theme. This can either be a relative directory, in which case it is resolved relative to the directory containing your configuration file or it can be an absolute directory path from the root of your local file system.

See Customizing Your Theme for details if you would like to tweak an existing theme.

See the Theme Developer Guide if you would like to build your own theme from the ground up.

#### static_templates

A list of templates to render as static pages. The templates must be located in either the theme's template directory or in the `custom_dir` defined in the theme configuration.

#### (theme specific keywords)

Any additional keywords supported by the theme can also be defined. See the documentation for the theme you are using for details.

default: `'mkdocs'`

### docs_dir

The directory containing the documentation source markdown files. This can either be a relative directory, in which case it is resolved relative to the directory containing your configuration file, or it can be an absolute directory path from the root of your local file system.

default: `'docs'`

### site_dir

The directory where the output HTML and other files are created. This can either be a relative directory, in which case it is resolved relative to the directory containing your configuration file, or it can be an absolute directory path from the root of your local file system.

default: `'site'`

Note

If you are using source code control you will normally want to ensure that your build output files are not committed into the repository, and only keep the source files under version control. For example, if using `git` you might add the following line to your `.gitignore` file:

    site/

If you're using another source code control tool, you'll want to check its documentation on how to ignore specific directories.

### extra_css

Set a list of CSS files (relative to `docs_dir`) to be included by the theme, typically as `<link>` tags.

Example:

    extra_css:
      - css/extra.css
      - css/second_extra.css

default: `[]` (an empty list).

### extra_javascript

Set a list of JavaScript files in your `docs_dir` to be included by the theme, as `<script>` tags.

Changed in version 1.5:

Older versions of MkDocs supported only a plain list of strings, but now several additional config keys are available: `type`, `async`, `defer`.

See the examples and what they produce:

    extra_javascript:
      - some_plain_javascript.js       # <script src="some_plain_javascript.js"></script>
            # New behavior in MkDocs 1.5:
      - implicitly_as_module.mjs       # <script src="implicitly_as_module.mjs" type="module"></script>
            # Config keys only supported since MkDocs 1.5:
      - path: explicitly_as_module.mjs # <script src="explicitly_as_module.mjs" type="module"></script>
        type: module
      - path: deferred_plain.js        # <script src="deferred_plain.js" defer></script>
        defer: true
      - path: scripts/async_module.mjs # <script src="scripts/async_module.mjs" type="module" async></script>
        type: module
        async: true

So, each item can be either:

- a plain string, or
- a mapping that has the required `path` key and 3 optional keys `type` (string), `async` (boolean), `defer` (boolean).

Only the plain string variant detects the `.mjs` extension and adds `type="module"`, otherwise `type: module` must be written out regardless of extension.

default: `[]` (an empty list).

Note

`*.js` and `*.css` files, just like any other type of file, are always copied from `docs_dir` into the site's deployed copy, regardless if they're linked to the pages via the above configs or not.

### extra_templates

Set a list of templates in your `docs_dir` to be built by MkDocs. To see more about writing templates for MkDocs read the documentation about [custom themes] and specifically the section about the [available variables] to templates. See the example in extra_css for usage.

default: `[]` (an empty list).

### extra

A set of key-value pairs, where the values can be any valid YAML construct, that will be passed to the template. This allows for great flexibility when creating custom themes.

For example, if you are using a theme that supports displaying the project version, you can pass it to the theme like this:

    extra:
      version: 1.0

default: By default `extra` will be an empty key-value mapping.

## Preview controls

## Live Reloading

### watch

Determines additional directories to watch when running `mkdocs serve`. Configuration is a YAML list.

    watch:
      - directory_a
      - directory_b

Allows a custom default to be set without the need to pass it through the `-w`/`--watch` option every time the `mkdocs serve` command is called.

Note

The paths provided via the configuration file are relative to the configuration file.

The paths provided via the `-w`/`--watch` CLI parameters are not.

### use_directory_urls

This setting controls the style used for linking to pages within the documentation.

The following table demonstrates how the URLs used on the site differ when setting `use_directory_urls` to `true` or `false`.

Source file | use_directory_urls: true | use_directory_urls: false
--- | --- | ---
index.md | / | /index.html
api-guide.md | /api-guide/ | /api-guide.html
about/license.md | /about/license/ | /about/license.html

The default style of `use_directory_urls: true` creates more user friendly URLs, and is usually what you'll want to use.

The alternate style can be useful if you want your documentation to remain properly linked when opening pages directly from the file system, because it creates links that point directly to the target file rather than the target directory.

default: `true`

### strict

Determines how warnings are handled. Set to `true` to halt processing when a warning is raised. Set to `false` to print a warning and continue processing.

This is also available as a command line flag: `--strict`.

default: `false`

### dev_addr

Determines the address used when running `mkdocs serve`. Must be of the format `IP:PORT`.

Allows a custom default to be set without the need to pass it through the `--dev-addr` option every time the `mkdocs serve` command is called.

default: `'127.0.0.1:8000'`

See also: site_url.

## Formatting options

### markdown_extensions

MkDocs uses the Python Markdown library to translate Markdown files into HTML. Python Markdown supports a variety of extensions that customize how pages are formatted. This setting lets you enable a list of extensions beyond the ones that MkDocs uses by default (`meta`, `toc`, `tables`, and `fenced_code`).

For example, to enable the SmartyPants typography extension, use:

    markdown_extensions:
      - smarty

Some extensions provide configuration options of their own. If you would like to set any configuration options, then you can nest a key/value mapping (`option_name: option value`) of any options that a given extension supports. See the documentation for the extension you are using to determine what options they support.

For example, to enable permalinks in the (included) `toc` extension, use:

    markdown_extensions:
      - toc:
          permalink: true

Note that a colon (`:`) must follow the extension name (`toc`) and then on a new line the option name and value must be indented and separated by a colon. If you would like to define multiple options for a single extension, each option must be defined on a separate line:

    markdown_extensions:
      - toc:
          permalink: true
          separator: "_"

Add an additional item to the list for each extension. If you have no configuration options to set for a specific extension, then simply omit options for that extension:

    markdown_extensions:
      - smarty
      - toc:
          permalink: true
      - sane_lists

Dynamic config values

To dynamically configure the extensions, you can get the config values from environment variables or obtain paths of the currently rendered Markdown file or the overall MkDocs site.

In the above examples, each extension is a list item (starts with a `-`). As an alternative, key/value pairs can be used instead. However, in that case an empty value must be provided for extensions for which no options are defined. Therefore, the last example above could also be defined as follows:

    markdown_extensions:
      smarty: {}
      toc:
        permalink: true
      sane_lists: {}

This alternative syntax is required if you intend to override some options via inheritance.

More extensions

The Python-Markdown documentation provides a list of extensions which are available out-of-the-box. For a list of configuration options available for a given extension, see the documentation for that extension.

You may also install and use various third party extensions (Python-Markdown wiki, MkDocs project catalog). Consult the documentation provided by those extensions for installation instructions and available configuration options.

default: `[]` (an empty list).

### hooks

New in version 1.4

A list of paths to Python scripts (relative to `mkdocs.yml`) that are loaded and used as plugin instances.

For example:

    hooks:
      - my_hooks.py

Then the file my_hooks.py can contain any plugin event handlers (without `self`), e.g.:

    def on_page_markdown(markdown, **kwargs):
        return markdown.replace('a', 'z')

Advanced example:

This produces warnings based on the Markdown content (and warnings are fatal in strict mode):

    import logging, re
    import mkdocs.plugins

    log = logging.getLogger('mkdocs')

    @mkdocs.plugins.event_priority(-50)
    def on_page_markdown(markdown, page, **kwargs):
        path = page.file.src_uri
        for m in re.finditer(r'\bhttp://[^) ]+', markdown):
            log.warning(f"Documentation file '{path}' contains a non-HTTPS link: {m[0]}")

This does not enable any new abilities compared to plugins, it only simplifies one-off usages, as these don't need to be installed like plugins do.

Note that for `mkdocs serve` the hook module will not be reloaded on each build.

You might have seen this feature in the mkdocs-simple-hooks plugin. If using standard method names, it can be directly replaced, e.g.:

    -plugins:
    -  - mkdocs-simple-hooks:
    -      hooks:
    -        on_page_markdown: 'my_hooks:on_page_markdown'
    +hooks:
    +  - my_hooks.py

### plugins

A list of plugins (with optional configuration settings) to use when building the site. See the Plugins documentation for full details.

If the `plugins` config setting is defined in the `mkdocs.yml` config file, then any defaults (such as `search`) are ignored and you need to explicitly re-enable the defaults if you would like to continue using them:

    plugins:
      - search
      - your_other_plugin

To define options for a given plugin, use a nested set of key/value pairs:

    plugins:
      - search
      - your_other_plugin:
          option1: value
          option2: other value

In the above examples, each plugin is a list item (starts with a `-`). As an alternative, key/value pairs can be used instead. However, in that case an empty value must be provided for plugins for which no options are defined. Therefore, the last example above could also be defined as follows:

    plugins:
      search: {}
      your_other_plugin:
        option1: value
        option2: other value

This alternative syntax is required if you intend to override some options via inheritance.

To completely disable all plugins, including any defaults, set the `plugins` setting to an empty list:

    plugins: []

default: `['search']` (the "search" plugin included with MkDocs).

#### Search

A search plugin is provided by default with MkDocs which uses lunr.js as a search engine. The following config options are available to alter the behavior of the search plugin:

##### separator

A regular expression which matches the characters used as word separators when building the index. By default whitespace and the hyphen (`-`) are used. To add the dot (`.`) as a word separator you might do this:

    plugins:
      - search:
          separator: '[\s\-\.]+'

default: `'[\s\-]+'`

##### min_search_length

An integer value that defines the minimum length for a search query. By default searches shorter than 3 chars in length are ignored as search result quality with short search terms are poor. However, for some use cases (such as documentation about Message Queues which might generate searches for 'MQ') it may be preferable to set a shorter limit.

    plugins:
      - search:
          min_search_length: 2

default: 3

##### prebuild_index

Optionally generates a pre-built index of all pages, which provides some performance improvements for larger sites. Before enabling, confirm that the theme you are using explicitly supports using a prebuilt index (the builtin themes do). Set to `true` to enable.

Warning

This option requires that Node.js be installed and the command `node` be on the system path. If the call to `node` fails for any reason, a warning is issued and the build continues uninterrupted. You may use the `--strict` flag when building to cause such a failure to raise an error instead.

Note

On smaller sites, using a pre-built index is not recommended as it creates a significant increase is bandwidth requirements with little to no noticeable improvement to your users. However, for larger sites (hundreds of pages), the bandwidth increase is relatively small and your users will notice a significant improvement in search performance.

default: `False`

##### indexing

Configures what strategy the search indexer will use when building the index for your pages. This property is particularly useful if your project is large in scale, and the index takes up an enormous amount of disk space.

    plugins:
      - search:
          indexing: 'full'

###### Options

Option | Description
--- | ---
`full` | Indexes the title, section headings, and full text of each page.
`sections` | Indexes the title and section headings of each page.
`titles` | Indexes only the title of each page.

default: `full`

## Special YAML tags

### Environment variables

In most cases, the value of a configuration option is set directly in the configuration file. However, as an option, the value of a configuration option may be set to the value of an environment variable using the `!ENV` tag. For example, to set the value of the `site_name` option to the value of the variable `SITE_NAME` the YAML file may contain the following:

    site_name: !ENV SITE_NAME

If the environment variable is not defined, then the configuration setting would be assigned a `null` (or `None` in Python) value. A default value can be defined as the last value in a list. Like this:

    site_name: !ENV [SITE_NAME, 'My default site name']

Multiple fallback variables can be used as well. Note that the last value is not an environment variable, but must be a value to use as a default if none of the specified environment variables are defined.

    site_name: !ENV [SITE_NAME, OTHER_NAME, 'My default site name']

Simple types defined within an environment variable such as string, bool, integer, float, datestamp and null are parsed as if they were defined directly in the YAML file, which means that the value will be converted to the appropriate type. However, complex types such as lists and key/value pairs cannot be defined within a single environment variable.

For more details, see the pyyaml_env_tag project.

### Paths relative to the current file or site

New in version 1.5

Some Markdown extensions can benefit from knowing the path of the Markdown file that's currently being processed, or just the root path of the current site. For that, the special tag `!relative` can be used in most contexts within the config file, though the only known usecases are within `markdown_extensions`.

Examples of the possible values are:

    - !relative  # Relative to the directory of the current Markdown file
    - !relative $docs_dir  # Path of the docs_dir
    - !relative $config_dir  # Path of the directory that contains the main mkdocs.yml
    - !relative $config_dir/some/child/dir  # Some subdirectory of the root config directory

(Here, `$docs_dir` and `$config_dir` are currently the only special prefixes that are recognized.)

Example:

    markdown_extensions:
      - pymdownx.snippets:
          base_path: !relative  # Relative to the current Markdown file

This allows the pymdownx.snippets extension to include files relative to the current Markdown file, which without this tag it would have no way of knowing.

Note

Even for the default case, any extension's base path is technically the current working directory although the assumption is that it's the directory of mkdocs.yml. So even if you don't want the paths to be relative, to improve the default behavior, always prefer to use this idiom:

    markdown_extensions:
      - pymdownx.snippets:
          base_path: !relative $config_dir  # Relative to the root directory with mkdocs.yml

## Configuration Inheritance

Generally, a single file would hold the entire configuration for a site. However, some organizations may maintain multiple sites which all share a common configuration across them. Rather than maintaining separate configurations for each, the common configuration options can be defined in a parent configuration file which each site's primary configuration file inherits.

To define the parent for a configuration file, set the `INHERIT` (all caps) key to the path of the parent file. The path must be relative to the location of the primary file.

For configuration options to be merged with a parent configuration, those options must be defined as key/value pairs. Specifically, the markdown_extensions and plugins options must use the alternative syntax which does not use list items (lines which start with `-`).

For example, suppose the common (parent) configuration is defined in `base.yml`:

    theme:
      name: mkdocs
      locale: en
      highlightjs: true

    markdown_extensions:
      toc:
        permalink: true
      admonition: {}

Then, for the "foo" site, the primary configuration file would be defined at `foo/mkdocs.yml`:

    INHERIT: ../base.yml
    site_name: Foo Project
    site_url: https://example.com/foo

When running `mkdocs build`, the file at `foo/mkdocs.yml` would be passed in as the configuration file. MkDocs will then parse that file, retrieve and parse the parent file `base.yml` and deep merge the two. This would result in MkDocs receiving the following merged configuration:

    site_name: Foo Project
    site_url: https://example.com/foo

    theme:
      name: mkdocs
      locale: en
      highlightjs: true

    markdown_extensions:
      toc:
        permalink: true
      admonition: {}

Deep merging allows you to add and/or override various values in your primary configuration file. For example, suppose for one site you wanted to add support for definition lists, use a different symbol for permalinks, and define a different separator. In that site's primary configuration file you could do:

    INHERIT: ../base.yml
    site_name: Bar Project
    site_url: https://example.com/bar

    markdown_extensions:
      def_list: {}
      toc:
        permalink: 
        separator: "_"

In that case, the above configuration would be deep merged with `base.yml` and result in the following configuration:

    site_name: Bar Project
    site_url: https://example.com/bar

    theme:
      name: mkdocs
      locale: en
      highlightjs: true

    markdown_extensions:
      def_list: {}
      toc:
        permalink: 
        separator: "_"
      admonition: {}

Notice that the `admonition` extension was retained from the parent configuration, the `def_list` extension was added, the value of `toc.permalink` was replaced, and the value of `toc.separator` was added.

You can replace or merge the value of any key. However, any non-key is always replaced. Therefore, you cannot append items to a list. You must redefine the entire list.

As the nav configuration is made up of nested lists, this means that you cannot merge navigation items. Of course, you can replace the entire `nav` configuration with a new one. However, it is generally expected that the entire navigation would be defined in the primary configuration file for a project.

Warning

As a reminder, all path based configuration options must be relative to the primary configuration file and MkDocs does not alter the paths when merging. Therefore, defining paths in a parent file which is inherited by multiple different sites may not work as expected. It is generally best to define path based options in the primary configuration file only.

The inheritance can also be used as a quick way to override keys on the command line - by using stdin as the config file. For example:

    echo '{INHERIT: mkdocs.yml, site_name: "Renamed site"}' | mkdocs build -f -

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