Install docfx with Homebrew

Project links

• Homepage
• Repository

Commands and aliases

• docfx

Project history

The GitHub release history reaches back to 2015-era 0.x releases, followed by a long 2.x line used by .NET projects for API docs and technical documentation sites.

DocFX's public identity emphasizes static-site generation plus API reference extraction for .NET, REST API documentation, landing pages, and Markdown documentation.

A later v3 branch was used internally for Microsoft Learn work, while public package notes and repository text state that Microsoft Learn no longer uses docfx and the project is planned to continue as community-driven under the .NET Foundation.

Adoption history

DocFX was adopted by .NET library and platform projects because it could generate reference documentation from assemblies or source comments while hosting conceptual docs in the same site.

It is distributed through NuGet and packaged by Homebrew, Chocolatey, Scoop, and Nix, covering both developer-local and CI documentation builds.

How it is used

A typical project keeps a docfx.json config file, runs docfx metadata/build/serve commands, and publishes the generated static site to GitHub Pages, Azure Static Web Apps, or another static host.

The tool is especially useful when API reference and hand-written Markdown must cross-link in one documentation site.

Why package nerds care

DocFX is a major example of docs-as-code moving from bespoke vendor documentation systems into normal package-manager-installed CLI workflows.

Its Microsoft Learn transition is historically interesting because it left a widely used open-source tool with a community maintenance path after the largest original user moved on.

Timeline

• 2015: early v0.x DocFX releases appeared on GitHub.
• 2016-2021: the 2.x release line matured into the common public DocFX generation path for .NET projects.
• 2018: Microsoft Learn's On .NET show introduced DocFX as an open-source static site generator for source-code and Markdown documentation.
• 2021-2022: v3 prerelease work existed, while public notes later said the v3 branch was privatized for Microsoft Learn.
• 2022 onward: Microsoft Learn stopped using the public docfx project and DocFX continued as a .NET Foundation/community-driven project.
• 2025-2026: the public 2.x line continues to receive compatibility and maintenance releases.

Related projects

• Related documentation generators include Sandcastle, Doxygen, Sphinx, MkDocs, Docusaurus, Docsy, and Microsoft Learn's current internal documentation systems.
• DocFX depends conceptually on .NET XML documentation comments, Roslyn metadata extraction, Markdown processing, templates, and static-site publishing workflows.

Sources

• https://github.com/dotnet/docfx
• https://dotnet.github.io/docfx/
• https://dotnet.github.io/docfx/docs/basic-concepts.html
• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/shows/on-dotnet/intro-to-docfx
• https://www.nuget.org/packages/docfx/2.62.2
• https://www.nuget.org/packages/Docfx.Dotnet/
• https://github.com/dotnet/docfx/releases
• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/iis/contribute