docs: document Fern docs publishing workflow

[miyoungc]

Description

Document the Fern docs publishing workflow for documentation changes:

• PRs run Fern validation and publish previews for same-repository branches.
• Docs-related changes that land on develop publish to the staging instance.
• make docs-fern-publish-public publishes the staged docs to the public Fern instance.

Related Issue(s)

Verification

• make -n docs-fern-publish-public

Checklist

• I've read the CONTRIBUTING guidelines.
• I've updated the documentation if applicable.
• I've added tests if applicable.
• @mentions of the person or team responsible for reviewing proposed changes.

[greptile-apps]

Greptile Summary

This PR documents the Fern docs publishing workflow and adds the docs-fern-publish-public make target for promoting staged docs to the public instance. It also fixes ordered-list formatting in CONTRIBUTING.md by indenting blockquotes so they no longer break the numbered sequence.

• Makefile: Adds FERN_PUBLIC_INSTANCE variable and docs-fern-publish-public target, parallel to the existing staging target, with .PHONY declaration and help-text entry.
• CONTRIBUTING.md: Adds table rows for both publish targets, a CI-publishing paragraph, and fixes blockquote indentation in the Getting Started section (renumbering steps 6/7 → 5/6 to match the corrected rendering).
• docs/LIVE_DOCS.mdx: Adds a "CI Publishing" section covering PR-preview, staging-on-merge, and the manual public-publish command.

Confidence Score: 5/5

Safe to merge — the change is purely additive documentation and a new make target that mirrors an existing, already-shipped staging target.

All three files are documentation or build-convenience changes. The new docs-fern-publish-public make target is a direct copy of the existing docs-fern-publish-staging pattern with a different instance URL, and the CONTRIBUTING.md formatting fixes address pre-existing rendering bugs in the numbered list. No runtime code or test infrastructure is touched.

No files require special attention.

Important Files Changed

Filename	Overview
Makefile	Adds docs-fern-publish-public make target and FERN_PUBLIC_INSTANCE variable, mirroring the existing staging target. Adds the new target to .PHONY and the help output.
docs/LIVE_DOCS.mdx	Adds a "CI Publishing" section explaining the PR-preview, staging-on-merge, and manual public-publish workflow. No issues found.
CONTRIBUTING.md	Adds two new rows to the docs table for the staging and public publish targets, adds a CI-publishing paragraph, and fixes ordered-list formatting by indenting blockquotes so they don't break the numbered sequence (renumbering steps 6/7 to 5/6 accordingly).

Flowchart

%%{init: {'theme': 'neutral'}}%%
flowchart TD
    A[Open PR with docs changes] --> B{Same-repository branch?}
    B -- Yes --> C[Fern check + publish PR preview]
    B -- No fork --> D[Fern check only]
    C --> E[PR merges into develop]
    D --> E
    E --> F[Auto-publish to Staging instance]
    F --> G[Maintainer verifies staging]
    G --> H[make docs-fern-publish-public]
    H --> I[Published to Public instance]

Loading

_{Reviews (4): Last reviewed commit: "chore: address docs publishing review co..." | Re-trigger Greptile}

[github-actions]

Staged Fern docs preview: https://nvidia-preview-pr-2015.docs.buildwithfern.com/nemo/guardrails

[coderabbitai]

📝 Walkthrough

Walkthrough

This PR adds documentation describing the Fern docs build workflow behavior across two files. It clarifies that documentation PRs trigger validation and preview publication, and that docs changes merged to develop are published to the staging Fern docs instance.

Changes

Fern Docs CI/Publishing Documentation

Layer / File(s)	Summary
CI publishing workflow documentation CONTRIBUTING.md, docs/LIVE_DOCS.mdx	Contribution guidelines and live docs reference sections document the Fern docs build workflow: validation and preview publication for documentation PRs, and staging deployment for develop merges.

Estimated code review effort

🎯 1 (Trivial) | ⏱️ ~3 minutes

Suggested reviewers

• tgasser-nv

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 6

✅ Passed checks (6 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Docstring Coverage	✅ Passed	No functions found in the changed files to evaluate docstring coverage. Skipping docstring coverage check.
Linked Issues check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.
Out of Scope Changes check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.
Test Results For Major Changes	✅ Passed	PR contains only minor documentation additions (CONTRIBUTING.md and LIVE_DOCS.mdx) with no code changes, features, or breaking changes; test results not required for minor changes.
Title check	✅ Passed	The title accurately reflects the main change: documenting the Fern docs publishing workflow in the project's documentation files.
Description Check	✅ Passed	Check skipped - CodeRabbit’s high-level summary is enabled.

_{✏️ Tip: You can configure your own custom pre-merge checks in the settings.}

✨ Finishing Touches

📝 Generate docstrings

• Create stacked PR
• Commit on current branch

🧪 Generate unit tests (beta)

• Create PR with unit tests
• Commit unit tests in branch docs/update-contributing-guides

---

_{Comment @coderabbitai help to get the list of available commands and usage tips.}

[codecov]

Codecov Report

✅ All modified and coverable lines are covered by tests.

📢 Thoughts on this report? Let us know!

[tgasser-nv]

Looks good, just have a couple of questions. Could you address the Greptile feedback as well before merging?

[miyoungc]

@tgasser-nv incorporated all feedback, merging. Thank you!