xyd

xyd is a documentation framework aimed squarely at developer docs. Install it globally, run one command for a dev server with hot reload and another to build static files, and a docs site exists before any configuration work begins.

It comes out of LiveSession, who needed a docs tool for their analytics platform and released the whole thing rather than a trimmed version. Node 22.12 or later is required. Several packages behind it stand on their own too, including a docs writing engine and a set of API docs tooling, and the components follow a design system published as a Storybook.

What arrives with the framework goes well past page rendering.

• Themes: six built-in themes are published separately and swap in without a rewrite.
• API reference: reference pages generate from OpenAPI and GraphQL specifications.
• SDK generation: client SDKs are produced from those same specifications.
• Search: full text search with typo tolerance and relevance scoring is built in.
• Plugins: search, analytics, chat and more arrive through a plugin ecosystem.
• Experiments: A/B testing integrates with LaunchDarkly and GrowthBook.
• Live chat: Intercom, LiveChat and Chatwoot embed into the docs themselves.

Deploy templates exist for Netlify, Vercel and CodeSandbox, a starter and ready to run examples are published separately, and a migration tool moves docs off several other frameworks. xyd suits a team whose documentation has to carry API reference, analytics and experiments, not prose alone.