Docs site: reduce maintenance (single source for code, non-blocking translations, simpler CI) #456

Summary

Make the docs site cheaper to maintain: one source for every fact, no build steps that block unrelated doc fixes, and fewer pages to keep in sync. Work is split into 5 phases that can land as separate PRs, in this order. Each phase has a checklist and a "Done when".

Progress — 2026-09-30

Merged #457 as 508a246.

• Phase 4 complete: removed HTTP/2 server push, JSONP, and load balancing recipes and their unused assets/dependencies; added replacement redirects across current locales, stable/next channels, and legacy Docusaurus URLs.
• Phase 3 source conversion complete: all 85 maintained cookbook pages and the ten Request Logger/Static middleware pages across five locales render Go/HTML from repository files. The include plugin supports regions, Markdown/MDX, source-aware caching, and actionable validation errors. JWT/SSE documentation drift and generated-file copies are removed; cookbook ownership checks run in CI.
• Phase 3 remains open: Prometheus package alignment, targeted recipe tests, and removal of the remaining cookbook/http2/ sample certificate/key. The server-push certificate/key were removed with that recipe. The combined compile/test checkbox remains open because the requested recipe tests have not been added.
• Phases 1 and 5 remain open. Translation checks and /next/ remain in place after ci: consolidate checks and derive docs sources from Go modules #458.

Validation before merge: 22 Node tests; 18 Go tests across 30 packages; go vet ./...; stable/next production builds; 767 routes and 56,576 internal links/assets; exact checks of 440 rendered source snippets and 175 redirect destinations. Local browser QA covered desktop/mobile layouts, light/dark themes, examples across all five locales, search, copy controls, navigation, channel switching, and sampled redirects. No merge-blocking regression found.

Phase 2 complete: merged #458 as 0e7e4df. CI is consolidated; Go minimum/preferred toolchain and stable/external source versions come from the module files; both Go modules share Dependabot version/security update groups; publishing refreshes weekly; API diffs appear in the Actions summary. New routes pass with a warning to record them for future removal protection. The origin budget covers declared resources (including preloads, icons, images and embeds) while excluding navigation links/preconnects; byte-size budgets are unchanged. All six review findings were fixed and replied to. Validation: all 36 Node tests, Go vet/race checks, stable/next builds, 767 routes and 56,576 internal links/assets, workflow linting, and local browser checks passed. Final pre-merge CI passed.

Phase 3 follow-up merged: #461 merged as 9d234d5. The homepage Hello World now comes from its runnable source, and Casbin middleware/enforcer/JWT excerpts and model/policy files come from the recipe across all five locales. Both review findings were fixed: the hidden hero code is excluded from keyboard focus, and Casbin pages define the enforcer and list the JWT dependencies. All 37 Node tests, Go vet/race checks, stable/next builds, link/accessibility/performance checks, and local desktop/mobile/light/dark browser checks passed. Final head CI passed. The two corresponding Phase 3 checkboxes are complete; Phase 3 remains open for Prometheus alignment, targeted recipe tests, and the HTTP/2 sample certificate/key.

Why

• Pasted code: complete cookbook programs are pasted into every locale page: 120 blocks, about 6,100 lines. Some copies have already drifted (cookbook/jwt.md, cookbook/sse.md). The CRUD page (cookbook(crud): handle missing users and invalid ids consistently #455) already imports its code instead.
• Blocking translation checks: translation-status.mjs and security-translation-status.mjs fail the build, so an English edit can block deployment until 4 translations are updated.
• /next/ channel: it doubles the build and the baselines, is currently one commit ahead of stable, and publishes about 305 duplicate pages without noindex.
• CI overlap and pins: two workflows build the site on every PR, and Go versions differ (1.25 vs 1.27). Echo is pinned in several places, and Dependabot doesn't cover Go modules.

Phase 1: Unblock deployment (~1 day)

Goal: an English doc fix can always ship.

• Make translation checks report-only:
  • site/scripts/translation-status.mjs: drop process.exitCode = 1 and write the report to $GITHUB_STEP_SUMMARY when set.
  • site/scripts/security-translation-status.mjs: replace the throw with a report, like the line above.
  • site/scripts/build-site.mjs: keep running both, but never fail on them.
• Show readers when a translation may be stale: extend site/src/components/VersionBanner.astro to show "This translation may be outdated. Read the English version" on pages the report flags.
• Stop publishing /next/:
  • site/scripts/build-site.mjs: build only the stable channel, and remove rewriteNextLinks.
  • Delete site/next-source.json and site/next-reference-baseline.json, and remove the next rules from check-site.mjs and check-performance.mjs.
  • Redirect /next/* to the stable URL, so existing links keep working.
• Add .github/workflows/echo-master.yml, a weekly, non-required check against Echo master:
  • go get github.com/labstack/echo/v5@master, then go vet ./... and go test ./... for the cookbook and reference/.
  • Run the config-field extractor and print the API diff against site/reference-baseline.json in the job summary.
  • Open or update an issue when it fails.

Done when: a PR that changes only English text builds and deploys with stale translations, /next/ redirects to stable, and the weekly job runs green on Echo master.

Phase 2: One CI workflow and one Echo pin (~1 day)

Goal: a single version bump is a single PR.

• Merge docs.yml, test.yaml and test-deploy.yaml into one PR workflow: go vet + go test -race ./..., then the site build and checks. Keep deploy.yaml for publishing.
• Use go-version-file: go.mod in every workflow instead of hard-coded 1.25/1.27, and drop the hard-coded Go version in the go.work written by prepare-echo-source.mjs.
• Derive the Echo source from go.mod: in prepare-echo-source.mjs, resolve Echo with go mod download -json github.com/labstack/echo/v5 (as external modules already are) instead of cloning a SHA. Delete site/echo-source.json.
• Derive the external module versions (site/external-sources.json) from go.mod too, or check that they match.
• Add gomod to .github/dependabot.yml for / and /reference, grouped into one PR.
• Route baseline (check-site.mjs): fail only on removed routes; new pages shouldn't need an accept step.
• Performance check: count only scripts and stylesheets as external origins, not plain <a href> links.
• deploy.yaml: change the daily cron (it only refreshes the star count) to weekly.

Done when: a Dependabot Go PR updates Echo in one place, and CI builds, checks and shows any API diff in one workflow.

Phase 3: Code comes from source files (~2 days)

Goal: no page contains a pasted copy of a program from the repo.

• Add a small remark plugin in site/ that reads a fenced block like ```go file=cookbook/jwt/custom-claims/server.go (path from the repo root) and fills in the file's content. Support optional regions (#name, between // docs:start name and // docs:end name) for step-by-step excerpts. Pages stay .md, with no per-locale import paths.
• Convert cookbook/crud.mdx (all locales) to the fence syntax, and remove the copyFileSync special case from prepare-echo-source.mjs.
• Replace every pasted cookbook program with a file= fence in all locales. Script it: replace a block only when it exactly matches the source file, and review the rest by hand.
• Fix the known drift while converting:
  • cookbook/jwt.md vs cookbook/jwt/custom-claims/server.go
  • cookbook/sse.md vs cookbook/sse/broadcast/server.go
  • middleware/prometheus.mdx and site/external-sources.json use echo-prometheus, but cookbook/prometheus/server.go uses echo-contrib/v5/echoprometheus. Pick one.
  • middleware/casbin-auth.md pastes the same middleware twice.
  • Render the homepage Hello World (site/src/components/HomeHero.astro) from cookbook/hello-world/server.go.
• Add a CI rule: fail if a page under cookbook/ has a bare ```go block of more than ~15 lines without file=.
• Every recipe compiles (go vet ./...). Add server_test.go only where there is real logic (crud already has one; also jwt, cors, file-upload, timeout), using the newServer() pattern from crud.
• Delete the committed sample certificates and keys in cookbook/http2/ and cookbook/http2-server-push/ (expired 2017). Generate them at run time or document mkcert.

Done when: CI fails on a pasted program, every code block on a cookbook page comes from a compiled file, and the drift items are fixed.

Phase 4: Prune the cookbook (~½ day)

Goal: less to maintain, and no broken links.

• Remove or merge the recipes with low value and high upkeep:
  • http2-server-push: browsers removed HTTP/2 push.
  • jsonp: the page itself recommends JSON with CORS.
  • load-balancing: Armor/nginx configs. Also fix the page's HTTPS instructions, which don't match its plain-HTTP example.
• Add an explicit redirect for every removed URL in all locales (site/src/redirects.mjs currently derives redirects from existing files, so removals silently drop them).
• Remove unused assets and Go dependencies that belonged to removed recipes (go mod tidy).

Done when: removed pages redirect, and the link check and go vet ./... pass.

Phase 5: Translate less (~1½ days)

Goal: translation work matches what readers use.

• Decide which locales and pages stay translated, using site analytics. Suggested start is the learning path (about 11–25 pages): installation, quickstart, routing, context, request, response, binding, error handling, the middleware index, hello-world, crud.
• Don't translate security pages: a stale translated security warning is worse than English. Remove the localized copies and let Starlight fall back to English.
• Delete the other translation files, relying on Starlight's English fallback.
• Make the scripts fallback-aware: check-source.mjs and check-site.mjs currently require every page in every locale.
• Keep one list of locales (it's hard-coded in about 11 files), and move component labels (for example ConfigReference.astro) to Starlight's i18n strings with Astro.currentLocale.
• Keep one staleness check covering all translated pages: merge translation-sections.mjs, translation-status.mjs and security-translation-status.mjs, with code blocks excluded from the hashes.

Done when: every page that isn't translated renders in English under each locale URL, the checks pass, and the staleness report covers all translated pages.

Out of scope

• Moving docs into labstack/echo: echox stays a separate repo.
• A separate v4 site: instead, add one "Migrating from v4" page, link pkg.go.dev for v4 APIs, and note v4 LTS support until 2026-12-31.
• Generating all API docs: the config-field extractor stays narrow, and pkg.go.dev covers the rest.

Notes

• The phases are independent PRs. 1 and 2 remove most of the recurring cost, 3 is the largest.
• Keep existing link, anchor, accessibility and asset-size checks unless a phase changes them on purpose.