Upgraders, please check the release notes.
A programmatic interface for jsdoc3 with a few features:
- Asynchronous 'explain' and 'render documentation' methods (the two main jsdoc operations).
- Input (source code) can supplied as a string or set of file names and/or globs.
- Optional caching, dramatically speeding up future invocations with the same input.
To output an array of json objects, each representing a doclet, use .explain(). Pass in an array of file names and/or glob expressions. Use the cache: true flag for a faster, more efficient invocation (cached output from a prior invocation will be returned if the input has not changed).
import jsdoc from 'jsdoc-api'
const data = await jsdoc.explain({ files: ['index.js', 'lib/*.js'], cache: true })
console.log(data)Typical output (truncated):
[
{
comment: '/**\n' +
' * The [cache-point](https://github.com/75lb/cache-point) instance used when `cache: true` is specified on `.explain()`.\n' +
' * @type {external:cache-point}\n' +
' */',
meta: {
range: [ 491, 554 ],
filename: 'index.js',
lineno: 21,
columnno: 6,
path: '/Users/lloyd/Documents/jsdoc2md/jsdoc-api',
code: { id: 'astnode100000027', name: 'cache', type: 'NewExpression', value: '' }
},
description: 'The [cache-point](https://github.com/75lb/cache-point) instance used when `cache: true` is specified on `.explain()`.',
type: { names: [ 'external:cache-point' ] },
name: 'cache',
longname: 'module:jsdoc-api~cache',
kind: 'constant',
scope: 'inner',
memberof: 'module:jsdoc-api',
params: []
},
// etc
// etc
]As an alternative to passing in file names/globs (above), you can pass in one or more source code strings.
import jsdoc from 'jsdoc-api'
const data = await jsdoc.explain({ source: '/** example doclet */ \n var example = true' })
console.log(data)Output:
[
{
comment: '/** example doclet */',
meta: {
range: [ 28, 42 ],
filename: '934b1fbe2810.js',
lineno: 2,
columnno: 5,
path: '/var/folders/bt/jgn73jf50vsb5gj92dk00v3r0000gn/T/jsdoc-api-W854dk',
code: { id: 'astnode100000003', name: 'example', type: 'Literal', value: true }
},
description: 'example doclet',
name: 'example',
longname: 'example',
kind: 'member',
scope: 'global',
params: []
},
{ kind: 'package', longname: 'package:undefined', files: [ '/var/folders/bt/jgn73jf50vsb5gj92dk00v3r0000gn/T/jsdoc-api-W854dk/934b1fbe2810.js' ] }
]Finally, use the render() method to invocate jsdoc directly, generating your documentation.
import jsdoc from 'jsdoc-api'
await jsdoc.render({ files: ['index.js', 'lib/something.js'], destination: 'jsdoc-output' })If you need to use a specific jsdoc version or fork, specify its path via JSDOC_PATH and jsdoc-api will use it instead of the default.
$ export JSDOC_PATH=./node_modules/.bin/jsdoc # An alternative jsdoc version you installed
$ node my-jsdoc-api-script.js # Run your jsdoc-api app as usualSee the API documentation for further details. See the example folder for code examples.
© 2015-2026 Lloyd Brookes <opensource@75lb.com>.
Documented by jsdoc-to-markdown.