docs/README.md
pav d1a3519646
📝(docs) improve readme and add documentation hub (#1870)
## Purpose

This pull request improves the project’s documentation entry points and
overall readability to make Docs more approachable for new users and
contributors.

While reviewing the repository, I noticed that the project highlights
documentation and Markdown support, but the front-page README contained
several Markdown syntax issues and inconsistencies. This made the
landing experience feel less polished than the quality of the project
itself. The goal of this change is to provide a cleaner, more
consistent, and more professional first impression.

Please let me know and I can apply any changes, or edit other .md files
as needed!

## Proposal

- Rewrite the root README to be tighter, easier to scan, and more
user-facing
- Add a documentation landing page at `/docs/README.md` with a
structured table of contents
- Introduce `docs/instances.md` to list public Docs instances  

## External contributions

Thank you for your contribution! 🎉  

Please ensure the following items are checked before submitting your
pull request:

- [x] I have read and followed the [contributing
guidelines](https://github.com/suitenumerique/docs/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md)
- [x] I have read and agreed to the [Code of
Conduct](https://github.com/suitenumerique/docs/blob/main/CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md)
- [x] I have signed off my commits with `git commit --signoff` (DCO
compliance)
- [x] I have signed my commits with my SSH or GPG key (`git commit -S`)
- [x] My commit messages follow the required format: `<gitmoji>(type)
title description`
- [x] I have added a changelog entry under `## [Unreleased]` section  
- [x] I have not added tests because this PR only contains documentation
changes

---------

Signed-off-by: actuallypav <61046893+actuallypav@users.noreply.github.com>
2026-03-05 14:55:35 +00:00

6.1 KiB

Docs

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La Suite Docs: Collaborative Text Editing

Docs, where your notes can become knowledge through live collaboration.

Docs is an open-source collaborative editor that helps teams write, organize, and share knowledge together - in real time.

Live collaboration demo

What is Docs?

Docs is an open-source alternative to tools like Notion or Google Docs, focused on:

  • Real-time collaboration
  • Clean, structured documents
  • Knowledge organization
  • Data ownership & self-hosting

Built for public organizations, companies, and open communities.

Why use Docs?

Writing

  • Rich-text & Markdown editing
  • Slash commands & block system
  • Beautiful formatting
  • Offline editing
  • Optional AI writing helpers (rewirite, summarize, translate, fix typos)

Collaboration

  • Live cursors & presence
  • Comments & sharing
  • Granular access control

Knowledge management

  • Subpages & hierarchy
  • Searchable content

Export/Import & interoperability

  • Import to .docx and .md
  • Export to .docx, .odt, .pdf

Try Docs

Experience Docs instantly - no installation required.

Self-hosting

Docs supports Kubernetes, Docker Compose, and community-provided methods such as Nix and YunoHost.

Get started with self-hosting: Installation guide

Warning

Some advanced features (for example: Export as PDF) rely on XL packages from Blocknote. These packages are licensed under GPL and are not MIT-compatible

You can run Docs without these packages by building with:

PUBLISH_AS_MIT=true

This builds an image of Docs without non-MIT features.

More details can be found in environment variables

Local Development (for contributors)

Run Docs locally for development and testing.

Warning

This setup is intended for development and testing only. It uses Minio as an S3-compatible storage backend, but any S3-compatible service can be used.

Prerequisites

  • Docker
  • Docker Compose
  • GNU Make

Verify installation:

docker -v
docker compose version

If you encounounter permission errors, you may need to use sudo, or add your user to the docker group.

Bootstrap the project

The easiest way to start is using GNU Make:

make bootstrap FLUSH_ARGS='--no-input'

This builds the app-dev and fronted-dev containers, installs dependencies, runs database migrations, and compiles translations.

It is recommend to run this command after pulling new code.

Start services:

make run

Open https://localhost:3000

Default credentials (development only):

username: impress
password: impress

Frontend development mode

For frontend work, running outside Docker is often more convenient:

make frontend-development-install
make run-frontend-development

Backend only

Starting all services except the frontend container:

make run-backend

Tests & Linting

make frontend-test
make frontend-lint

Demo content

Create a basic demo site:

make demo

More Make targets

To check all available Make rules:

make help

Django admin

Create a superuser:

make superuser

Admin UI: http://localhost:8071/admin

Contributing

This project is community-driven and PRs are welcome.

Roadmap

Curious where Docs is headed?

Explore upcoming features, priorities and long-term direction on our public roadmap.

License 📝

This work is released under the MIT License (see LICENSE).

While Docs is a public-driven initiative, our license choice is an invitation for private sector actors to use, sell and contribute to the project.

Credits ❤️

Stack

Docs is built on top of Django Rest Framework, Next.js, ProseMirror, BlockNote.js, HocusPocus, and Yjs. We thank the contributors of all these projects for their awesome work!

We are proud sponsors of BlockNotejs and Yjs.


Gov ❤️ open source

Docs is the result of a joint initiative led by the French 🇫🇷 (DINUM) Government and German 🇩🇪 government (ZenDiS).

We are always looking for new public partners (we are currently onboarding the Netherlands 🇳🇱), feel free to contact us if you are interested in using or contributing to Docs.

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