Site Config

Site config is where you can define the global settings of the site. App config options define settings that apply to every VitePress site, regardless of what theme it is using. For example, the base directory or the title of the site.

Overview

Config Resolution

The config file is always resolved from <root>/.vitepress/config.[ext], where <root> is your VitePress project root, and [ext] is one of the supported file extensions. TypeScript is supported out of the box. Supported extensions include .js, .ts, .mjs, and .mts.

It is recommended to use ES modules syntax in config files. The config file should default export an object:

export default {
  // app level config options
  lang: 'en-US',
  title: 'VitePress',
  description: 'Vite & Vue powered static site generator.',
  ...
}

Dynamic (Async) Config

If you need to dynamically generate the config, you can also default export a function. For example:

import { defineConfig } from 'vitepress'

export default async () => {
  const posts = await (await fetch('https://my-cms.com/blog-posts')).json()

  return defineConfig({
    // app level config options
    lang: 'en-US',
    title: 'VitePress',
    description: 'Vite & Vue powered static site generator.',

    // theme level config options
    themeConfig: {
      sidebar: [
        ...posts.map((post) => ({
          text: post.name,
          link: `/posts/${post.name}`
        }))
      ]
    }
  })
}

You can also use top-level await. For example:

import { defineConfig } from 'vitepress'

const posts = await (await fetch('https://my-cms.com/blog-posts')).json()

export default defineConfig({
  // app level config options
  lang: 'en-US',
  title: 'VitePress',
  description: 'Vite & Vue powered static site generator.',

  // theme level config options
  themeConfig: {
    sidebar: [
      ...posts.map((post) => ({
        text: post.name,
        link: `/posts/${post.name}`
      }))
    ]
  }
})

Config Intellisense

Using the defineConfig helper will provide TypeScript-powered intellisense for config options. Assuming your IDE supports it, this should work in both JavaScript and TypeScript.

import { defineConfig } from 'vitepress'

export default defineConfig({
  // ...
})

Typed Theme Config

By default, defineConfig helper expects the theme config type from default theme:

import { defineConfig } from 'vitepress'

export default defineConfig({
  themeConfig: {
    // Type is `DefaultTheme.Config`
  }
})

If you use a custom theme and want type checks for the theme config, you'll need to use defineConfigWithTheme instead, and pass the config type for your custom theme via a generic argument:

import { defineConfigWithTheme } from 'vitepress'
import type { ThemeConfig } from 'your-theme'

export default defineConfigWithTheme<ThemeConfig>({
  themeConfig: {
    // Type is `ThemeConfig`
  }
})

Vite, Vue & Markdown Config

Vite
You can configure the underlying Vite instance using the vite option in your VitePress config. No need to create a separate Vite config file.
Vue
VitePress already includes the official Vue plugin for Vite (@vitejs/plugin-vue). You can configure its options using the vue option in your VitePress config.
Markdown
You can configure the underlying Markdown-It instance using the markdown option in your VitePress config.

Site Metadata

title

Type: string
Default: VitePress
Can be overridden per page via frontmatter

Title for the site. When using the default theme, this will be displayed in the nav bar.

It will also be used as the default suffix for all individual page titles, unless titleTemplate is defined. An individual page's final title will be the text content of its first <h1> header, combined with the global title as the suffix. For example with the following config and page content:

export default {
  title: 'My Awesome Site'
}

# Hello

The title of the page will be Hello | My Awesome Site.

titleTemplate

Type: string | boolean
Can be overridden per page via frontmatter

Allows customizing each page's title suffix or the entire title. For example:

export default {
  title: 'My Awesome Site',
  titleTemplate: 'Custom Suffix'
}

# Hello

The title of the page will be Hello | Custom Suffix.

To completely customize how the title should be rendered, you can use the :title symbol in titleTemplate:

export default {
  titleTemplate: ':title - Custom Suffix'
}

Here :title will be replaced with the text inferred from the page's first <h1> header. The title of the previous example page will be Hello - Custom Suffix.

The option can be set to false to disable title suffixes.

description

Type: string
Default: A VitePress site
Can be overridden per page via frontmatter

Description for the site. This will render as a <meta> tag in the page HTML.

export default {
  description: 'A VitePress site'
}

head

Type: HeadConfig[]
Default: []
Can be appended per page via frontmatter

Additional elements to render in the <head> tag in the page HTML. The user-added tags are rendered before the closing head tag, after VitePress tags.

type HeadConfig =
  | [string, Record<string, string>]
  | [string, Record<string, string>, string]

Example: Adding a favicon

export default {
  head: [['link', { rel: 'icon', href: '/favicon.ico' }]]
} // put favicon.ico in public directory, if base is set, use /base/favicon.ico

/* Would render:
  <link rel="icon" href="/favicon.ico">
*/

Example: Adding Google Fonts

export default {
  head: [
    [
      'link',
      { rel: 'preconnect', href: 'https://fonts.googleapis.com' }
    ],
    [
      'link',
      { rel: 'preconnect', href: 'https://fonts.gstatic.com', crossorigin: '' }
    ],
    [
      'link',
      { href: 'https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Roboto&display=swap', rel: 'stylesheet' }
    ]
  ]
}

/* Would render:
  <link rel="preconnect" href="https://fonts.googleapis.com">
  <link rel="preconnect" href="https://fonts.gstatic.com" crossorigin>
  <link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Roboto&display=swap" rel="stylesheet">
*/

Example: Registering a service worker

export default {
  head: [
    [
      'script',
      { id: 'register-sw' },
      `;(() => {
        if ('serviceWorker' in navigator) {
          navigator.serviceWorker.register('/sw.js')
        }
      })()`
    ]
  ]
}

/* Would render:
  <script id="register-sw">
    ;(() => {
      if ('serviceWorker' in navigator) {
        navigator.serviceWorker.register('/sw.js')
      }
    })()
  </script>
*/

Example: Using Google Analytics

export default {
  head: [
    [
      'script',
      { async: '', src: 'https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=TAG_ID' }
    ],
    [
      'script',
      {},
      `window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
      function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);}
      gtag('js', new Date());
      gtag('config', 'TAG_ID');`
    ]
  ]
}

/* Would render:
  <script async src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=TAG_ID"></script>
  <script>
    window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
    function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);}
    gtag('js', new Date());
    gtag('config', 'TAG_ID');
  </script>
*/

lang

Type: string
Default: en-US

The lang attribute for the site. This will render as a <html lang="en-US"> tag in the page HTML.

export default {
  lang: 'en-US'
}

base

Type: string
Default: /

The base URL the site will be deployed at. You will need to set this if you plan to deploy your site under a sub path, for example, GitHub pages. If you plan to deploy your site to https://foo.github.io/bar/, then you should set base to '/bar/'. It should always start and end with a slash.

The base is automatically prepended to all the URLs that start with / in other options, so you only need to specify it once.

export default {
  base: '/base/'
}

Routing

cleanUrls

Type: boolean
Default: false

When set to true, VitePress will remove the trailing .html from URLs. Also see Generating Clean URL.

Server Support Required

Enabling this may require additional configuration on your hosting platform. For it to work, your server must be able to serve /foo.html when visiting /foo without a redirect.

rewrites

Type: Record<string, string>

Defines custom directory <-> URL mappings. See Routing: Route Rewrites for more details.

export default {
  rewrites: {
    'source/:page': 'destination/:page'
  }
}

Build

srcDir

Type: string
Default: .

The directory where your markdown pages are stored, relative to project root. Also see Root and Source Directory.

export default {
  srcDir: './src'
}

srcExclude

Type: string
Default: undefined

A glob pattern for matching markdown files that should be excluded as source content.

export default {
  srcExclude: ['**/README.md', '**/TODO.md']
}

outDir

Type: string
Default: ./.vitepress/dist

The build output location for the site, relative to project root.

export default {
  outDir: '../public'
}

assetsDir

Type: string
Default: assets

Specify the directory to nest generated assets under. The path should be inside outDir and is resolved relative to it.

export default {
  assetsDir: 'static'
}

cacheDir

Type: string
Default: ./.vitepress/cache

The directory for cache files, relative to project root. See also: cacheDir.

export default {
  cacheDir: './.vitepress/.vite'
}

ignoreDeadLinks

Type: boolean | 'localhostLinks' | (string | RegExp | ((link: string) => boolean))[]
Default: false

When set to true, VitePress will not fail builds due to dead links.

When set to 'localhostLinks', the build will fail on dead links, but won't check localhost links.

export default {
  ignoreDeadLinks: true
}

It can also be an array of exact url string, regex patterns, or custom filter functions.

export default {
  ignoreDeadLinks: [
    // ignore exact url "/playground"
    '/playground',
    // ignore all localhost links
    /^https?:\/\/localhost/,
    // ignore all links include "/repl/""
    /\/repl\//,
    // custom function, ignore all links include "ignore"
    (url) => {
      return url.toLowerCase().includes('ignore')
    }
  ]
}

metaChunk experimental

Type: boolean
Default: false

When set to true, extract pages metadata to a separate JavaScript chunk instead of inlining it in the initial HTML. This makes each page's HTML payload smaller and makes the pages metadata cacheable, thus reducing server bandwidth when you have many pages in the site.

mpa experimental

Type: boolean
Default: false

When set to true, the production app will be built in MPA Mode. MPA mode ships 0kb JavaScript by default, at the cost of disabling client-side navigation and requires explicit opt-in for interactivity.

Theming

appearance

Type: boolean | 'dark' | 'force-dark' | import('@vueuse/core').UseDarkOptions
Default: true

Whether to enable dark mode (by adding the .dark class to the <html> element).

If the option is set to true, the default theme will be determined by the user's preferred color scheme.
If the option is set to dark, the theme will be dark by default, unless the user manually toggles it.
If the option is set to false, users will not be able to toggle the theme.

This option injects an inline script that restores users settings from local storage using the vitepress-theme-appearance key. This ensures the .dark class is applied before the page is rendered to avoid flickering.

appearance.initialValue can only be 'dark' | undefined. Refs or getters are not supported.

lastUpdated

Type: boolean
Default: false

Whether to get the last updated timestamp for each page using Git. The timestamp will be included in each page's page data, accessible via useData.

When using the default theme, enabling this option will display each page's last updated time. You can customize the text via themeConfig.lastUpdatedText option.

Customization

markdown

Type: MarkdownOption

Configure Markdown parser options. VitePress uses Markdown-it as the parser, and Shiki to highlight language syntax. Inside this option, you may pass various Markdown related options to fit your needs.

export default {
  markdown: {...}
}

Check the type declaration and jsdocs for all the options available.

vite

Type: import('vite').UserConfig

Pass raw Vite Config to internal Vite dev server / bundler.

export default {
  vite: {
    // Vite config options
  }
}

vue

Type: import('@vitejs/plugin-vue').Options

Pass raw @vitejs/plugin-vue options to the internal plugin instance.

export default {
  vue: {
    // @vitejs/plugin-vue options
  }
}

Build Hooks

VitePress build hooks allow you to add new functionality and behaviors to your website:

Sitemap
Search Indexing
PWA
Teleports

buildEnd

Type: (siteConfig: SiteConfig) => Awaitable<void>

buildEnd is a build CLI hook, it will run after build (SSG) finish but before VitePress CLI process exits.

export default {
  async buildEnd(siteConfig) {
    // ...
  }
}

postRender

Type: (context: SSGContext) => Awaitable<SSGContext | void>

postRender is a build hook, called when SSG rendering is done. It will allow you to handle the teleports content during SSG.

export default {
  async postRender(context) {
    // ...
  }
}

interface SSGContext {
  content: string
  teleports?: Record<string, string>
  [key: string]: any
}

transformHead

Type: (context: TransformContext) => Awaitable<HeadConfig[]>

transformHead is a build hook to transform the head before generating each page. It will allow you to add head entries that cannot be statically added to your VitePress config. You only need to return extra entries, they will be merged automatically with the existing ones.

WARNING

Don't mutate anything inside the context.

export default {
  async transformHead(context) {
    // ...
  }
}

interface TransformContext {
  page: string // e.g. index.md (relative to srcDir)
  assets: string[] // all non-js/css assets as fully resolved public URL
  siteConfig: SiteConfig
  siteData: SiteData
  pageData: PageData
  title: string
  description: string
  head: HeadConfig[]
  content: string
}

Note that this hook is only called when generating the site statically. It is not called during dev. If you need to add dynamic head entries during dev, you can use the transformPageData hook instead:

export default {
  transformPageData(pageData) {
    pageData.frontmatter.head ??= []
    pageData.frontmatter.head.push([
      'meta',
      {
        name: 'og:title',
        content:
          pageData.frontmatter.layout === 'home'
            ? `VitePress`
            : `${pageData.title} | VitePress`
      }
    ])
  }
}

Example: Adding a canonical URL `<link>`

export default {
  transformPageData(pageData) {
    const canonicalUrl = `https://example.com/${pageData.relativePath}`
      .replace(/index\.md$/, '')
      .replace(/\.md$/, '.html')

    pageData.frontmatter.head ??= []
    pageData.frontmatter.head.push([
      'link',
      { rel: 'canonical', href: canonicalUrl }
    ])
  }
}

transformHtml

Type: (code: string, id: string, context: TransformContext) => Awaitable<string | void>

transformHtml is a build hook to transform the content of each page before saving to disk.

WARNING

Don't mutate anything inside the context. Also, modifying the html content may cause hydration problems in runtime.

export default {
  async transformHtml(code, id, context) {
    // ...
  }
}

transformPageData

Type: (pageData: PageData, context: TransformPageContext) => Awaitable<Partial<PageData> | { [key: string]: any } | void>

transformPageData is a hook to transform the pageData of each page. You can directly mutate pageData or return changed values which will be merged into the page data.

WARNING

Don't mutate anything inside the context and be careful that this might impact the performance of dev server, especially if you have some network requests or heavy computations (like generating images) in the hook. You can check for process.env.NODE_ENV === 'production' for conditional logic.

export default {
  async transformPageData(pageData, { siteConfig }) {
    pageData.contributors = await getPageContributors(pageData.relativePath)
  }

  // or return data to be merged
  async transformPageData(pageData, { siteConfig }) {
    return {
      contributors: await getPageContributors(pageData.relativePath)
    }
  }
}

interface TransformPageContext {
  siteConfig: SiteConfig
}

Site Config ​

Overview ​

Config Resolution ​

Config Intellisense ​

Typed Theme Config ​

Vite, Vue & Markdown Config ​

Site Metadata ​

title ​

titleTemplate ​

description ​

head ​

Example: Adding a favicon ​

Example: Adding Google Fonts ​

Example: Registering a service worker ​

Example: Using Google Analytics ​

lang ​

base ​

Routing ​

cleanUrls ​

rewrites ​

Build ​

srcDir ​

srcExclude ​

outDir ​

assetsDir ​

cacheDir ​

ignoreDeadLinks ​

metaChunk experimental ​

mpa experimental ​

Theming ​

appearance ​

lastUpdated ​

Customization ​

markdown ​

vite ​

vue ​

Build Hooks ​

buildEnd ​

postRender ​

transformHead ​

Example: Adding a canonical URL <link> ​

transformHtml ​

transformPageData ​

Site Config

Overview

Config Resolution

Config Intellisense

Typed Theme Config

Vite, Vue & Markdown Config

Site Metadata

title

titleTemplate

description

head

Example: Adding a favicon

Example: Adding Google Fonts

Example: Registering a service worker

Example: Using Google Analytics

lang

base

Routing

cleanUrls

rewrites

Build

srcDir

srcExclude

outDir

assetsDir

cacheDir

ignoreDeadLinks

metaChunk experimental

mpa experimental

Theming

appearance

lastUpdated

Customization

markdown

vite

vue

Build Hooks

buildEnd

postRender

transformHead

Example: Adding a canonical URL `<link>`

transformHtml

transformPageData