You may want to build the specification website locally to test your additions and edits and review if they render as intended.

  +-------------------+
  |[spdx-3-model]     |
  | +- model/        ---- Constrained-Markdown files -+
  | +- model.drawio  -----------------+               |
  +-------------------+               |               |
                                      |               |
  +-------------------+               v               |
  |[spdx-spec]        |            draw.io            |
  | +- docs/          |            (manual)           v
  | |  +- annexes/    |               |          spec-parser
  | |  +- front/      |               |               |
  | |  +- images/  <---- PNG images --+               |
  | |  +- licenses/   |                               |
  | |  +- model/   <----- Processed Markdown files ---+
  | |  +- rdf/     <----- RDF files ------------------+
  | |  +- *.md        |
  | |  +- index.md    |
  | +- mkdocs.yml     |
  +-------------------+
          |
       MkDocs
          |
          v
  +-------------------+
  | HTML website      |
  | +- annexes/       |
  | +- ...            |
  | +- *.md           |
  | +- index.html     |
  +-------------------+

1. Prerequisites

2. Getting input files

3. Processing model files (Markdown and RDF)

   • Generating model files with spec-parser
   • Generating a complete MkDocs configuration file

4. Building HTML

5. Configuring the website

6. Specification versions on spdx.github.io

Apart from Git and Python, you have to have MkDocs installed on your machine. If you don't have it yet installed please follow these installation instructions.

mkdocs.yml is the configuration file for MkDocs.

Next, you have to get the model files, the other specification files (main chapters, annexes, front matter, and licenses), and the model parser, by cloning these repositories: spdx/spdx-3-model, spdx/spdx-spec, and spdx/spec-parser to these paths: spdx-3-model, spdx-spec, and spec-parser, respectively:

git clone https://github.com/spdx/spdx-3-model.git
git clone https://github.com/spdx/spdx-spec.git
git clone https://github.com/spdx/spec-parser.git

Install their Python prerequisites:

pip3 install -r spdx-spec/requirements.txt
pip3 install -r spec-parser/requirements.txt

If you only want to review the non-model parts of the specification (e.g., chapters and annexes), you can skip to step 4.

Model files in spdx/spdx-3-model repository are written in a constrained Markdown format, with a predefined set of section headings. The spec-parser processes these model files to generate both ontology files and final Markdown files suitable for MkDocs.

The spec-parser also performs automatic formatting on the resulting Markdown files. For instance, it converts a list under the "Properties" heading into a table.

To verify the formatting of pre-processed model files and prepare them for MkDocs, run the following command:

python3 spec-parser/main.py \
  --generate-mkdocs --output-mkdocs spdx-spec/docs/model/ \
  spdx-3-model/model/

The command will instruct the spec-parser to read the input from spdx-3-model/model/ and generate processed Markdown files (.md), placing them in the spdx-spec/docs/model/ directory. These files will then be used by MkDocs.

An spdx-spec/docs/model/model-files.yml file will also be generated. This file contains a list of the files within spdx-spec/docs/model/ and will be used later for MkDocs configuration. We will move this model-files.yml file to the spdx-spec/ directory for subsequent use:

mv spdx-spec/docs/model/model-files.yml spdx-spec/

To ensure MkDocs recognizes the new Markdown files, insert the model file list from model-files.yml into the MkDocs configuration file in spdx-spec/mkdocs.yml, by using this command:

spdx-spec/bin/make-mkdocs-config.sh \
  -b spdx-spec/mkdocs.yml \
  -m spdx-spec/model-files.yml \
  -f spdx-spec/mkdocs-full.yml

The complete MkDocs configuration will be at spdx-spec/mkdocs-full.yml.

With all specification and model files prepared, we will use MkDocs to assemble them into a website.

Note: all the commands below use the configuration file with the model file list, mkdocs-full.yml, generated in step 3.2. If you only want to review the non-model part of the specification (have skipped step 3), please use mkdocs.yml instead.

These following commands should run inside the spdx-spec/ directory.

• To preview the specification in a web browser:

  mkdocs serve --config-file mkdocs-full.yml

• To build a static HTML site:

  mkdocs build --config-file mkdocs-full.yml

• To get debug messages, enables verbose output:

  mkdocs build --verbose --config-file mkdocs-full.yml

To make additional adjustments to the website, you can modify the configuration file at spdx-spec/mkdocs.yml.

For example, you can customize website details like the site name and main URL (canonical URL) in this file.

To include a page in the navigation bar, list its filename under the nav: section. The order of filenames in this section determines the order of the page in the navigation bar.

After you have modified the configuration file, you may need to rerun step 3.2 to incorporate the changes into the complete configuration file.

The SPDX specifications on https://spdx.github.io/spdx-spec/ are built by using a workflow in .github/workflows/publish_v3.yml. This workflow uses mike to publish multiple versions of MkDocs-powered documentation.

The published versions, their titles, and aliases are listed in the file versions.json located in the gh-pages branch. These versions populate the version selector dropdown on the website. The step name: Deploy and set aliases in the GitHub workflow file determines the title and alias.

mike is not needed for local testing of a specific spec version.