Command-line arguments to JSDoc

Table of Contents

• Examples
• Related Links

At its most basic level, JSDoc is used like so:

/path/to/jsdoc yourSourceCodeFile.js anotherSourceCodeFile.js ...

where ... are paths to other files to generate documentation for.

Additionally, one may provide the path to a Markdown file (ending in ".md") or a file named "README", and this will be added to the documentation on the front page. See these instructions.

JSDoc supports a number of command-line options, many of which have both long and short forms. Alternatively, the command-line options may be specified in a configuration file given to JSDoc. The command-line options are:

Option	Description
-a <value>, --access <value>	Only display symbols with the given access property: private, protected, public, or undefined, or all for all access levels. By default, all except private symbols are shown.
-c <value>, --configure <value>	The path to a JSDoc configuration file. Defaults to conf.json or conf.json.EXAMPLE in the directory where JSDoc is installed.
-d <value>, --destination <value>	The path to the output folder for the generated documentation. For JSDoc's built-in Haruki template, use console to dump data to the console. Defaults to ./out.
--debug	Log information that can help debug issues in JSDoc itself.
-e <value>, --encoding <value>	Assume this encoding when reading all source files. Defaults to utf8.
-h, --help	Display information about JSDoc's command-line options, then exit.
--match <value>	Only run tests whose names contain value.
--nocolor	When running tests, do not use color in the console output. On Windows, this option is enabled by default.
-p, --private	Include symbols marked with the @private tag in the generated documentation. By default, private symbols are not included.
-P, --package	The package.json file that contains the project name, version, and other details. Defaults to the first package.json file found in the source paths.
--pedantic	Treat errors as fatal errors, and treat warnings as errors. Defaults to false.
-q <value>, --query <value>	A query string to parse and store in the global variable env.opts.query. Example: foo=bar&baz=true.
-r, --recurse	Recurse into subdirectories when scanning for source files and tutorials.
-R, --readme	The README.md file to include in the generated documentation. Defaults to the first README.md file found in the source paths.
-t <value>, --template <value>	The path to the template to use for generating output. Defaults to templates/default, JSDoc's built-in default template.
-T, --test	Run JSDoc's test suite, and print the results to the console.
-u <value>, --tutorials <value>	Directory in which JSDoc should search for tutorials. If omitted, no tutorial pages will be generated. See the tutorial instructions for more information.
-v, --version	Displays JSDoc's version number, then exits.
--verbose	Log detailed information to the console as JSDoc runs. Defaults to false.
-X, --explain	Dump all doclets to the console in JSON format, then exit.

Examples

Generate documentation for files in the ./src directory, using the configuration file /path/to/my/conf.json, and save the output in the ./docs directory:

/path/to/jsdoc src -r -c /path/to/my/conf.json -d docs

Run all JSDoc tests whose names include the word tag, and log information about each test:

/path/to/jsdoc -T --match tag --verbose

Related Links

Configuring JSDoc with a configuration file