Prerequisites

• I have searched existing issues to ensure this feature hasn't already been requested
• I have tested using the latest version of docs-builder

What problem are you trying to solve?

We need the ability to build and publish content sets without adding a link from the main ToC and navigation.

Use cases

• Large net new content sets. We should be able to build, validate, and provide PR previews and links for ourselves and for reviewers. We tried various approaches (such as Firebase hosting to share locally generated output and a "Docs under Development" section on the landing page) before the equivalent feature was added to the classic docs system.
  Example: Early drafts of Ingest Reference Architecture docs when writers and reviewers needed to see how the content was coming together, but it was too early for the world to see.

• Highly specialized content that should be available from a curated path, but should not be readily discoverable.
  Example: Versioned Logstash plugins should be accessed only from the stack’s versioned plugin docs.

Treatment in docs search/AI

What does this mean for docs search/AI? Top of my head, it might make sense to expose hidden content if a user provides a very specific prompt, such as "Logstash Elasticsearch output v12.0.0." Specific versions should not be returned for more general prompts, such as "Logstash Elasticsearch output."

Proposed Solution

Building docs and adding a ToC entry to the landing page should be separate operations to allow for exceptions/overrides.

Examples and Research

No response

Alternative Solutions

We could bury content that we don't want users to find deep in the IA, but that seems like creating a new set of problems to fix an existing one.

Additional Context

We've used other workarounds, such as hiding individual VPR pages to prevent SEO indexing, but that has introduced weird behavior from nav. Also doesn't remove confusion from having Logstash Plugins and Versioned Plugins side-by-side in ToC.

Issue discovered and opened during the H1 Bug Bash: https://github.com/elastic/logstash-docs-md/issues/70.

How important is this feature to you?

Important