​

Implementation Guide

​

Overview

This guide walks you through implementing OpenDocs support in your documentation tool, language extractor, or documentation generator. OpenDocs is designed to be easy to implement while providing powerful capabilities.

​

Implementation Roadmap

​

Phase 1: Basic DocItem Support

1. Implement the core DocItem model
2. Add basic metadata extraction
3. Generate simple JSON output

Guide: DocItem Model

​

Phase 2: Documentation Integration

1. Extract documentation comments
2. Map to DocBlock format
3. Handle language-specific features

Guides: DocItem Model, Extractors

​

Phase 3: Advanced Features

1. Implement workspace organization
2. Add file format optimization
3. Support cross-references

Guides: Documentation Set Builder, Performance

​

Implementation Path

​

Quick Start

The fastest way to get started:

1. Start with DocItem: Implement the basic DocItem class
2. Add extraction: Extract from your language’s AST
3. Generate JSON: Serialize to OpenDocs format
4. Iterate: Add features incrementally

​

Language-Specific Resources

​

TypeScript

• TypeScript Compiler API
• TSDoc

​

Rust

• Syn - Rust parser
• Quote - Rust code generation

​

Go

• Go AST
• Go Parser

​

Python

• AST Module
• Docstring parsing

​

Common Libraries

​

JSON Processing

• @apidevtools/json-schema-ref-parser - Resolve JSON Schema $ref

​

Validation

• ajv - JSON Schema validation

​

Next Steps

Choose your path based on your needs:

• New to OpenDocs? → Start with DocItem Model
• Building an extractor? → Jump to Extractors
• Optimizing performance? → See Performance

​

Contributing

Help improve this implementation guide by:

1. Sharing your implementation experiences in Discussions
2. Contributing language-specific examples via Pull Requests
3. Reporting issues or suggesting improvements via Issues

​

See Also

• DocItem Model - Core documentation concepts
• Examples - Real-world implementations