With the preview-docs command, you can generate documentation previews for API descriptions on your local machine. Use the previews to develop your API descriptions locally before deployment.
If you have a license key or API key configured, the output is a preview of the premium Redocly API reference docs. Otherwise, it is a preview of Redoc community edition.
To preview docs using the premium Redocly API reference docs, you must first authenticate to the API registry with the login command.
redocly preview-docs <api>
redocly preview-docs <api> [--config=<path>] [--port=<value>] [--host=<host>]
redocly preview-docs <api> [--force] [--help] [--version]
redocly preview-docs <api> --version| Option | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| api | string | Path to the API description filename or alias that you want to generate the preview for. Refer to the API section for more details. |
| --config | string | Specify path to the configuration file. |
| --force, -f | boolean | Generate preview output even when errors occur. |
| --help | boolean | Show help. |
| --host, -h | string | The host where the documentation preview can be accessed. The default value is 127.0.0.1. |
| --lint-config | string | Specify the severity level for the configuration file. Possible values: warn, error, off. Default value is warn. |
| --port, -p | integer | The port where the documentation preview can be accessed. You can set any port number over 1024 as long as it is not already being used. The default value is port 8080. |
| --skip-decorator | [string] | Ignore certain decorators. |
| --skip-preprocessor | [string] | Ignore certain preprocessors. |
| --use-community-edition | boolean | Use Redoc Community Edition for docs preview. |
| --version | boolean | Show version number. |
The preview-docs command behaves differently depending on how you pass the API to it, and whether the configuration file exists.
redocly preview-docs openapi/openapi.yamlIn this case, preview-docs previews the API description that was passed to the command. Any configuration file is ignored.
Instead of a full path, you can use an API name from the apis section of your Redocly configuration file. For example, with a redocly.yaml configuration file containing the following entry for core@v1:
apis:
core@v1:
root: ./openapi/api-description.jsonYou can generate a preview by giving the API alias name, as shown below:
redocly preview-docs core@v1In this case, after resolving the path behind the core@v1 name, preview-docs generates a preview of the api-description.json file. For this approach, the Redocly configuration file is mandatory.
By default, the CLI tool looks for the Redocly configuration file in the current working directory. Use the optional --config argument to provide an alternative path to a configuration file:
redocly preview-docs --config=./another/directory/config.yamlBy default, without using the port option, the preview starts on port 8080, so you can access the docs at http://localhost:8080
To specify a custom port for the preview, pass the desired value using either short or long option format:
redocly preview-docs -p 8888 openapi/openapi.yamlBoth commands start the preview on port 8888, so you can access the docs at http://localhost:8888.
By default, without using the host option, the preview starts on host 127.0.0.1, so you can access the docs at http://127.0.0.1:8080 or http://localhost:8080.
To specify a custom host for the preview, pass the desired value using either short or long option format:
redocly preview-docs -h 0.0.0.0 openapi/openapi.yamlBoth commands start the preview on host 0.0.0.0, so you can access the docs at http://0.0.0.0:8080
You may want to skip specific preprocessors, rules, or decorators upon running the command.
redocly preview-docs --skip-preprocessor=discriminator-mapping-to-one-of --skip-preprocessor=another-example