Laravel VitePress

Serve VitePress documentation in your Laravel application with full middleware support, authentication, and role-based access control.

✨ Features

• 🚀 Pre-built VitePress documentation (no build step required in production)
• 🔐 Laravel authentication and authorization integration
• 🛡️ Middleware support for route protection
• 👥 Role and permission-based access control (compatible with Spatie Laravel Permission)
• ⚙️ Fully configurable routing
• 📦 Easy installation and publishing
• 🎨 Customizable views and layouts
• 🔒 Path traversal protection
• 🔐 Protected storage by default (docs stored outside public/ to enforce auth)
• 💾 Cache control headers
• 🌐 Multi-domain support

📋 Requirements

• PHP 8.1+
• Laravel 10.x, 11.x, or 12.x
• Node.js 20+ (for building documentation)

📊 Support Matrix

📦 Installation

Install the package via Composer:

composer require laravel-ready/laravel-vitepress

Run the installation command:

php artisan vitepress:install

This will publish:

• Configuration file to config/vitepress.php
• Pre-built documentation assets to storage/app/vitepress/docs (protected by default)

Visit /docs in your browser to see your documentation.

⚙️ Configuration

Basic Setup

// config/vitepress.php

return [
    'route' => [
        'prefix' => 'docs', // Access at /docs
        'middleware' => ['web'],
    ],
];

Storage Location

By default, documentation is stored in storage/ to prevent direct file access and ensure authentication is enforced. For public documentation without auth, you can store in public/:

'assets' => [
    // 'storage' = protected (default), 'public' = directly accessible
    'storage' => 'storage',
    'path' => 'vitepress/docs',
],

Important: If you use authentication (auth.enabled = true), keep storage set to 'storage'. Otherwise users can bypass auth by accessing files directly at /vitepress/docs/index.html.

With Authentication

Require users to be logged in:

'auth' => [
    'enabled' => true,
    'middleware' => ['auth'],
],

With Role-Based Access

Works with spatie/laravel-permission (optional):

'auth' => [
    'enabled' => true,
    'middleware' => ['auth'],
    'roles' => ['admin', 'developer'],
],

With Permission-Based Access

'auth' => [
    'enabled' => true,
    'middleware' => ['auth'],
    'permissions' => ['view-documentation'],
],

Note: Role and permission checks use hasAnyRole() and hasAnyPermission() methods from Spatie Laravel Permission. If the package is not installed, these checks are automatically skipped. The package works without Spatie - you can use basic auth or custom gates instead.

Custom Domain

Serve documentation from a subdomain:

'route' => [
    'domain' => 'docs.example.com',
    'prefix' => '',
],

Custom Gate

Define a custom gate for complex authorization:

// In AuthServiceProvider
Gate::define('view-documentation', function ($user) {
    return $user->hasActiveSubscription();
});

// config/vitepress.php
'auth' => [
    'enabled' => true,
    'gate' => 'view-documentation',
],

🚀 Usage

Accessing Documentation

After installation, your documentation is available at:

https://your-app.com/docs

Using the Facade

use LaravelReady\VitePress\Facades\VitePress;

// Check if VitePress is enabled
if (VitePress::isEnabled()) {
    // ...
}

// Get the documentation URL
$url = VitePress::getRouteUrl();

// Check if current user can access docs
if (VitePress::canAccess()) {
    // Show documentation link
}

// Get configuration
$config = VitePress::getConfig();
$prefix = VitePress::getConfig('route.prefix');

In Blade Templates

@if(VitePress::isEnabled() && VitePress::canAccess())
    <a href="{{ VitePress::getRouteUrl() }}">Documentation</a>
@endif

🎨 Customization

Publishing VitePress Source

To customize the documentation:

php artisan vitepress:publish --stubs

This will publish VitePress source files to resources/docs/.

Configuration Files

The VitePress config is split into two files:

Edit config.docs.mts to customize your documentation. Don't edit config.mts - it contains package logic that reads from your .env file.

Building Documentation

After making changes, rebuild:

php artisan vitepress:build

Changing Route Prefix

Just update your .env file:

VITEPRESS_ROUTE_PREFIX=documentation

Then rebuild:

php artisan vitepress:build

The base URL is automatically read from your .env file - no need to pass environment variables manually.

Publishing Other Resources

# Publish configuration only
php artisan vitepress:publish --config

# Publish assets only
php artisan vitepress:publish --assets

# Publish views only
php artisan vitepress:publish --views

# Publish everything
php artisan vitepress:publish --all

# Publish everything (force overwrite, useful when package needs updating etc.)
php artisan vitepress:publish --all --force

🛠️ Artisan Commands

🔧 Environment Variables

VITEPRESS_ENABLED=true
VITEPRESS_ROUTE_PREFIX=docs
VITEPRESS_DOMAIN=
VITEPRESS_AUTH_ENABLED=false
VITEPRESS_ALLOWED_ROLES=admin,developer
VITEPRESS_ALLOWED_PERMISSIONS=view-docs
VITEPRESS_GATE=
VITEPRESS_STORAGE=storage
VITEPRESS_ASSETS_PATH=vitepress/docs
VITEPRESS_CACHE_ENABLED=true
VITEPRESS_CACHE_MAX_AGE=3600

🔬 Advanced Usage

Custom Headers

Add security or custom headers:

'options' => [
    'headers' => [
        'X-Frame-Options' => 'SAMEORIGIN',
        'X-Content-Type-Options' => 'nosniff',
    ],
],

Custom 404 Page

'options' => [
    'custom_404' => 'errors.docs-404',
],

CORS Support

Enable CORS for API documentation:

'options' => [
    'cors_enabled' => true,
],

SPA Fallback

The package includes SPA fallback routing by default. Disable it for traditional page routing:

'options' => [
    'spa_fallback' => false,
],

🧪 Testing

composer test

📝 Changelog

Please see CHANGELOG for more information on what has changed recently.

🤝 Contributing

Please see CONTRIBUTING for details.