Kampose 0.4.0

Kampose

Kampose is a cross-platform .NET command-line tool that transforms XML documentation comments into professional API documentation. It generates production-ready, standards-compliant HTML or Markdown documentation with minimal configuration and integrates seamlessly with CI/CD pipelines.

Kampose includes comprehensive auditing capabilities to ensure documentation quality, validating XML documentation completeness, verifying external links, and enforcing customizable quality standards that can halt builds on issues in CI/CD pipelines.

Kampose targets .NET 10.0 and fully supports C# 14 while remaining compatible with earlier .NET and C# versions.

Key Features

• Zero Configuration Start - Works out of the box with sensible defaults
• Multiple Output Formats - HTML for websites, Markdown for wikis
• CI/CD Ready - Integrate seamlessly into your build pipelines
• Extensible Themes - Customize appearance to match your brand
• Quality Enforcement - Audit documentation completeness and correctness
• Topic Integration - Combine API docs with guides and tutorials

Common Use Cases

API Library Documentation

Generate comprehensive reference documentation for libraries and SDKs with detailed member information, inheritance hierarchies, and code examples. Kampose automatically organizes documentation by namespace and type.

Framework Documentation

Document complex frameworks with multiple assemblies and extensive type hierarchies. Kampose's support for multiple assemblies enables unified documentation generation across entire ecosystems.

Project Documentation Sites

Create complete documentation sites combining API reference with conceptual content, tutorials, and guides. Kampose processes Markdown topics alongside API documentation.

Topic-Only Documentation

Generate documentation sites from Markdown files without assemblies, useful for user guides, tutorials, or project documentation without API references.

Continuous Documentation

Integrate documentation generation into CI/CD pipelines to keep documentation synchronized with code changes, eliminating manual maintenance and reducing documentation drift.

Installation

dotnet tool install --global kampose

Quick Start

Step 1: Enable XML documentation in your project:

<GenerateDocumentationFile>true</GenerateDocumentationFile>

Step 2: Create kampose.json in your project root:

{
    "convention": "dotNet",
    "outputDirectory": "docs",
    "assemblies": ["bin/Release/**/*.dll"],
    "theme": "classic"
}

For more configuration options and examples, refer to the Configuration guide.

Step 3: Build your project and generate documentation:

dotnet build -c Release
kampose build

See the Command-Line Interface guide for additional commands and options.

Step 4: Open docs/index.html in your browser to view the generated documentation.

Documentation

Please visit the official documentation site for detailed guides and references:

• Getting Started Guide
• Configuration Reference
• CI/CD Integration
• Theme Customization
• Best Practices

For technical details on the core DocToolkit library, see the DocToolkit documentation.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Submit issues or pull requests on GitHub.

License

MIT License - see LICENSE for details.

Acknowledgments

Kampose is built on outstanding open-source projects maintained by the .NET and broader development community:

• Handlebars.Net - Powerful template engine enabling flexible theme development
• JsonSchema.Net - Robust JSON schema validation for configuration files
• Markdig - Fast and extensible Markdown processing
• Microsoft.Extensions.FileSystemGlobbing - Flexible file pattern matching for assembly and content discovery
• NUglify - Asset minification and optimization
• PrismJS - Syntax highlighting for code samples in documentation

The dedication and expertise of these project maintainers and contributors make Kampose possible. Thank you to everyone who contributes to the open-source ecosystem.