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The Elasticsearch docs are in AsciiDoc format and can be built using the Elasticsearch documentation build process.

Adding API reference pages

When you need to add a reference page for a new API:

  • Use the API reference template: template, real-life example.

  • Create a separate source file for each API.

  • The anchor for the top-level heading should match the heading as closely as possible.

  • Use dashes to separate words in the anchor. (Avoid underscores.)

  • The name of the source file should match the anchor text.

  • Include an abbreviated title that drops the heading’s API suffix.

  • Start the short description with a verb.

  • Include the sections from the reference template as applicable. See the template for information about each section.

  • Add a link to the new topic from the appropriate API category page. These links are typically grouped into sub-categories and listed in logical order. For example, the put API is listed before the get and delete APIs.

  • Include the new file so the API appears in alphabetical order in the TOC nav.

The template uses shared attributes for a number of the standard headings so we can tweak them globally if need be.

Many of the API reference pages also use shared parameter definitions from elasticsearch/docs/reference/rest-api/common-parms. You don’t have to do that.

Backporting doc fixes

  • Doc changes should generally be made against master and backported through to the current version (as applicable).

  • Changes can also be backported to the maintenance version of the previous major version. This is typically reserved for technical corrections, as it can require resolving more complex merge conflicts, fixing test failures, and figuring out where to apply the change.

  • Avoid backporting to out-of-maintenance versions. Docs follow the same policy as code and fixes are not ordinarily merged to versions that are out of maintenance.

  • Do not backport doc changes to EOL versions.

Snippet testing

Snippets marked with [source,console] are automatically annotated with "VIEW IN CONSOLE" and "COPY AS CURL" in the documentation and are automatically tested by the command ./gradlew -pdocs check. To test just the docs from a single page, use e.g. ./gradlew -pdocs integTestRunner --tests "*rollover*".

By default each [source,console] snippet runs as its own isolated test. You can manipulate the test execution in the following ways:

  • // TEST: Explicitly marks a snippet as a test. Snippets marked this way are tests even if they don’t have [source,console] but usually // TEST is used for its modifiers:

  • // TEST[s/foo/bar/]: Replace foo with bar in the generated test. This should be used sparingly because it makes the snippet "lie". Sometimes, though, you can use it to make the snippet more clear. Keep in mind that if there are multiple substitutions then they are applied in the order that they are defined.

  • // TEST[catch:foo]: Used to expect errors in the requests. Replace foo with request to expect a 400 error, for example. If the snippet contains multiple requests then only the last request will expect the error.

  • // TEST[continued]: Continue the test started in the last snippet. Between tests the nodes are cleaned: indexes are removed, etc. This prevents that from happening between snippets because the two snippets are a single test. This is most useful when you have text and snippets that work together to tell the story of some use case because it merges the snippets (and thus the use case) into one big test.

  • You can’t use // TEST[continued] immediately after // TESTSETUP or // TEARDOWN.

  • // TEST[skip:reason]: Skip this test. Replace reason with the actual reason to skip the test. Snippets without // TEST or // CONSOLE aren’t considered tests anyway but this is useful for explicitly documenting the reason why the test shouldn’t be run.

  • // TEST[setup:name]: Run some setup code before running the snippet. This is useful for creating and populating indexes used in the snippet. The setup code is defined in docs/build.gradle. See // TESTSETUP below for a similar feature.

  • // TEST[warning:some warning]: Expect the response to include a Warning header. If the response doesn’t include a Warning header with the exact text then the test fails. If the response includes Warning headers that aren’t expected then the test fails.

  • [source,console-result]: Matches this snippet against the body of the response of the last test. If the response is JSON then order is ignored. If you add // TEST[continued] to the snippet after [source,console-result] it will continue in the same test, allowing you to interleave requests with responses to check.

  • // TESTRESPONSE: Explicitly marks a snippet as a test response even without [source,console-result]. Similarly to // TEST this is mostly used for its modifiers.

  • You can’t use [source,console-result] immediately after // TESTSETUP. Instead, consider using // TEST[continued] or rearrange your snippets.

    NOTE: Previously we only used `// TESTRESPONSE` instead of
`[source,console-result]` so you'll see that a lot in older branches but we
prefer `[source,console-result]` now.

  • // TESTRESPONSE[s/foo/bar/]: Substitutions. See // TEST[s/foo/bar] for how it works. These are much more common than // TEST[s/foo/bar] because they are useful for eliding portions of the response that are not pertinent to the documentation.

  • One interesting difference here is that you often want to match against the response from Elasticsearch. To do that you can reference the "body" of the response like this: // TESTRESPONSE[s/"took": 25/"took": $body.took/]. Note the $body string. This says "I don’t expect that 25 number in the response, just match against what is in the response." Instead of writing the path into the response after $body you can write $_path which "figures out" the path. This is especially useful for making sweeping assertions like "I made up all the numbers in this example, don’t compare them" which looks like // TESTRESPONSE[s/\d+/$body.$_path/].

  • // TESTRESPONSE[non_json]: Add substitutions for testing responses in a format other than JSON. Use this after all other substitutions so it doesn’t make other substitutions difficult.

  • // TESTRESPONSE[skip:reason]: Skip the assertions specified by this response.

  • // TESTSETUP: Marks this snippet as the "setup" for all other snippets in this file. This is a somewhat natural way of structuring documentation. You say "this is the data we use to explain this feature" then you add the snippet that you mark // TESTSETUP and then every snippet will turn into a test that runs the setup snippet first. See the "painless" docs for a file that puts this to good use. This is fairly similar to // TEST[setup:name] but rather than the setup defined in docs/build.gradle the setup is defined right in the documentation file. In general, we should prefer // TESTSETUP over // TEST[setup:name] because it makes it more clear what steps have to be taken before the examples will work. Tip: // TESTSETUP can only be used on the first snippet of a document.

  • // TEARDOWN: Ends and cleans up a test series started with // TESTSETUP or // TEST[setup:name]. You can use // TEARDOWN to set up multiple tests in the same file.

  • // NOTCONSOLE: Marks this snippet as neither // CONSOLE nor // TESTRESPONSE, excluding it from the list of unconverted snippets. We should only use this for snippets that are JSON but are not responses or requests.

In addition to the standard CONSOLE syntax these snippets can contain blocks of yaml surrounded by markers like this:

startyaml
  - compare_analyzers: {index: thai_example, first: thai, second: rebuilt_thai}
endyaml

This allows slightly more expressive testing of the snippets. Since that syntax is not supported by [source,console] the usual way to incorporate it is with a // TEST[s//] marker like this:

// TEST[s/\n$/\nstartyaml\n  - compare_analyzers: {index: thai_example, first: thai, second: rebuilt_thai}\nendyaml\n/]

Any place you can use json you can use elements like $body.path.to.thing which is replaced on the fly with the contents of the thing at path.to.thing in the last response.