manage-gitbook-site

# Manage GitBook Site A skill for creating and maintaining entire GitBook documentation sites. Where `write-gitbook` covers what goes inside a single page, this skill covers everything around the pages: structure design, repo scaffolding, the GitBook REST API, and branding. Use the two skills together — this one calls into `write-gitbook` whenever it needs to generate or edit page content. ## The fundamental constraint The most important thing to internalize before doing anything: **GitBook's REST API can do almost everything except set up Git Sync**. Authorizing GitHub/GitLab, picking the repository, choosing the branch, setting the project directory for monorepo layouts, and choosing the initial sync direction are all UI-only operations. The API only lets you *read* the resulting Git Sync state (`GET /v1/spaces/{spaceId}/git/info`). That means the cleanest end-to-end flow is always: 1. Claude scaffolds a Git repo locally (and, when tooling permits, the remote) 2. Claude creates the site, sections, and any empty spaces it can via the API 3. **The user does a short, well-scripted UI step in GitBook to wire each space to its directory in the repo** 4. Claude applies branding/customization via the API The user's role in step 3 is unavoidable but should never be a surprise — generate clear, copy-paste-ready instructions for them. Reference: `references/git-sync-handoff.md`. If the user explicitly does not want Git Sync, fall back to the API content path (the Imports API and template application) — covered briefly below and in `references/api-cheatsheet.md`. ## Inputs you should gather up front Don't start scaffolding until these are known. If something is missing, ask once with a focused question rather than guessing. - **GitBook PAT** — required for all API calls. The user keeps this in 1Password and we fetch it at the start of each session via the `op` CLI: ```bash export GITBOOK_TOKEN=$(op read "<secret-reference>") ``` The skill remembers the user's secret reference across sessions via Claude's memory feature. On first use: 1. Check user memories for a line like `User's GitBook PAT 1Password reference: op://...`. If present, use that reference directly. 2. If absent, ask the user once for their `op` secret reference (they can find it via "Copy Secret Reference" in the 1Password UI, or by running `op item get <item-name> --format=json`). After they share it, save it via `memory_user_edits add` so future sessions don't have to ask again. 3. If `op read` fails (not signed in, wrong reference, item moved), surface the exact error and stop. Don't fall back to asking the user to paste the token directly into the conversation — keeping it in `op` is the whole point. Never write the token to a file, never echo it back in a response, never commit it. - **Organization** — list the user's orgs with `GET /v1/orgs` and **show the list to the user, then ask them to confirm which one is the target by name**. Do this even if they have only one org — confirming once up front is cheap insurance against creating sites in the wrong place. Save the chosen `organizationId` for the rest of the session and refer to the org by its title (not its UUID) when narrating subsequent steps. - **Site plan and visibility** — **default to `type: site` on the Ultimate plan**, public visibility, unless the user explicitly says otherwise. Most real customers want the Ultimate feature set (custom domain, AI Assistant, advanced customization, hidden GitBook trademark, custom fonts, custom logos). The free tier (`type: basic`) is appropriate only for clearly low-stakes use cases like solo open-source side projects. If you're unsure, ask: *"I'll set this up on the Ultimate plan unless you'd prefer the free tier — should I downgrade?"* — Ultimate features that are silently absent on `basic` (no AI assistant, no custom fonts, no custom domain) are a much bigger user surprise than briefly confirming the plan. - **The content seed** — what's the site being built from? Common shapes: - A folder of existing markdown — the cleanest starting point - A handful of notes plus a competitor's site as a reference - Just a description of what they want to document - An existing site they want to restructure (in which case fetch `GET /v1/orgs/{orgId}/sites/{siteId}/structure` first) - **A migration** from another docs platform (Mintlify, Docusaurus, ReadTheDocs, GitBook v1) — see `references/migration-from-other-platforms.md` for the workflow. Migration is its own discipline; don't treat it as a glorified file copy. - **OpenAPI spec for the API reference** — if the site has any API reference content, **ask up front whether they have an OpenAPI spec** (or whether one can be generated from their codebase). If yes, the API reference space is one `builtin:openapi` SUMMARY entry plus a one-paragraph overview README per resource — dramatically less work than hand-authored endpoint pages, and never drifts. See `references/block-ecosystem.md` and `references/api-cheatsheet.md` for the workflow. **Don't default to hand-authored endpoint pages** — they're almost always the wrong call. - **Branding** — at minimum, primary color (hex). Optionally: logo URLs (light + dark), favicon, font choice (or one of GitBook's defaults), header links, footer text/links, theme preset (`clean`, `muted`, `bold`, `gradient`). For Ultimate sites, also consider AI-assistant starter prompts (3-5 short questions visitors are likely to ask). - **Site structure** — sections, not site-spaces. If the site has more than one space, plan the **section list** with the user explicitly: each section has a title, a Font Awesome icon name, and a description. Section icons and descriptions are first-class navigation furniture — visitors see them — and gathering them up front saves a PATCH-per-section later. Example: `[{title: "Guides", icon: "book-open", description: "Concepts and tutorials"}, {title: "API Reference", icon: "code", description: "REST API and SDKs"}, {title: "Changelog", icon: "clock-rotate-left", description: "Updates and release notes"}]`. - **Git remote preference** — GitHub, GitLab, or local-only. Check whether `gh` or `glab` are installed *before* asking. If neither tool is available, **say so explicitly** and offer two paths: (1) commit locally and put the "create the remote and push" step at the top of the user's handoff, or (2) ask the user to install the tool. Don't quietly default to local-only without telling them — they'll have a repo with no remote and no instructions. - **Site shape** — single space or multi-space. Multi-space sites use **sections** to group spaces in the navigation; this is the right choice when content has clearly distinct audiences (e.g. user docs + API reference + changelog). Use site-spaces directly only for translation variants — see `references/api-cheatsheet.md`. ## Confirmation gates for state-changing API calls Site creation, space creation, adding sections, attaching site-spaces, and customization PUTs all create or modify objects that are **immediately visible to everyone in the org** and that take real effort to clean up. Treat them as heavy operations. The rule: **never call a state-changing endpoint without first showing the user a one-screen preview of exactly what's about to happen and getting an explicit "yes".** A good preview is short and concrete: > About to run, in org **Acme Inc** (`org_abc123`): > - Create site **"Acme Platform Docs"** (type: site, plan: ultimate, visibility: public) > - Create 3 empty spaces: **Guides**, **API Reference**, **Changelog** > - Add Guides as the default section; create sections for API Reference and Changelog > > Proceed? (yes/no) Bad previews are vague ("I'll create the site now") or buried in a wall of explanation. Keep it scannable. The same rule applies to destructive calls — DELETE on a site, space, section, or customization override — only with even less ambiguity ("This will delete site **Acme Platform Docs** along with its 3 spaces. Spaces and sites are recoverable for 7 days, then permanent. Confirm?"). When the user has already confirmed a multi-step plan in the structure-design step, you don't need to ask again for each individual API call inside that plan — but if anything in the plan changes (an extra space, a different visibility), re-confirm. For read-only calls (GET endpoints), no confirmation is needed. ## Designing the site structure Before writing any files or making any API calls, decide on the structure and run it past the user. A weak structure is the single biggest reason docs sites fail to land. The output of this step is a small plan, ideally three pieces: 1. **The space list** — one space per coherent body of content. Keep it small (1–4 spaces is typical). A space is a unit of navigation and Git Sync, so don't split a single audience's content across spaces. 2. **The section grouping** (if multi-space) — sections are top-level partitions in the site nav, e.g. "Product" / "Developers" / "Resources". A section can hold one or more spaces. 3. **The page tree per space** — folders and pages, with one or two sentence summaries of each page. The depth should match the content; shallow trees (1–2 levels) are usually best. The full set of heuristics for going from raw inputs to a structure plan is in `references/site-structure-design.md` — read it the first time you do this for a non-trivial site. **Always show the plan to the user and get explicit sign-off before scaffolding files.** Restructuring later is cheap inside Git but expensive once a site is published and indexed. A note on confirmation when the user gives one collapsed instruction: prompts like *"plan the structure and then scaffold it"* tempt you to skip the gate. Don't. Present the plan as a clear, scannable block, then either wait for a "yes" or — if you've already started scaffolding because the prompt was that explicit — surface what you decided in the plan and offer one easy chance to redirect ("if any of this is off, tell me and I'll redo before going further"). The point is that the user sees the plan **before** they're staring at twenty generated files, while a redo is still cheap. ## Scaffolding the repository Once the structure is agreed, lay out the repo as a monorepo — even for single-space sites, this is consistent and future-proof. Each space is a directory containing its own `README.md` (homepage) and `SUMMARY.md` (table of contents). Optionally a `.gitbook/` folder for per-space variables and reusable content blocks, and optionally a `.gitbook.yaml` for advanced sync configuration. Example layout for a three-space site: ``` my-docs/ ├── .gitignore ├── README.md # repo-level readme (not a space homepage) ├── guides/ # space 1 │ ├── README.md # space homepage │ ├── SUMMARY.md │ ├── .gitbook/ │ │ └── vars.yaml # optional: space-level variables │ ├── getting-started/ │ │ ├── installation.md │ │ └── quickstart.md │ └── concepts/ │ └── ... ├── api-reference/ # space 2 │ ├── README.md │ ├── SUMMARY.md │ └── endpoints/ │ └── ... └── changelog/ # space 3 ├── README.md └── SUMMARY.md ``` A few notes about this layout that often trip people up: - **`.gitbook.yaml` is optional.** GitBook works fine on the default convention of `README.md` + `SUMMARY.md` per space. Only add a `.gitbook.yaml` when you need to override the root, define redirects, or do something else non-default. The bundled example site (`references/example-site/`) has zero `.gitbook.yaml` files and works perfectly. - **`.gitbook/vars.yaml`** holds space-scoped variables that pages can reference inline (e.g. `support_email: support@evolve.com` referenced as `{% vars.support_email %}`). Useful for any value that appears on many pages. - **`.gitbook/includes/<name>.md`** holds reusable content blocks — a snippet you embed in many pages with `{% include "...persona-switcher" %}`. Use these instead of copy-pasting boilerplate. - The space directory name (e.g. `guides/`) is what the user enters into the "Project directory" field when wiring up Git Sync. A minimal `.gitbook.yaml`, when you do need one, looks like: ```yaml root: ./ structure: readme: README.md summary: SUMMARY.md ``` ### The repo-level README and .gitignore The repo-level `README.md` (top of the repo, not inside a space) should explain what the folder is and how it relates to the published site — not duplicate the docs themselves. A short paragraph is enough: ```markdown # my-docs Source for the [My Product docs site](https://docs.example.com). Each top-level folder is a separate GitBook space; edits flow in both directions via Git Sync once configured. ``` A `.gitignore` should keep OS junk and editor settings out of the repo. Reasonable default: ``` .DS_Store Thumbs.db *.swp *.swo .idea/ .vscode/ ``` If the team has additional generated artifacts (e.g. an OpenAPI spec built from source elsewhere), add those. ### Generating SUMMARY.md — gather the nav, don't infer it from folders The most common scaffolding mistake is to walk the file tree and emit a SUMMARY.md from it: README at the top, every other file as a child indented under the README. This produces dispiriting nav — every page is a "child of the homepage", folder names become group titles whether or not they're meaningful to a reader, and the IA mirrors the file system instead of the user's mental model. **The right pattern, in order:** 1. **Gather the desired navigation from the user during structure design.** Ask them — explicitly — to enumerate the top-level pages and the named groups for each space. This is the place where you make folder names match nav reality, and where the user can tell you "actually I want Authentication as a top-level page, not under Concepts." 2. **Lay out folders to match the agreed nav, not the other way around.** If the user wants three groups in a space — "Getting started", "Concepts", "Tutorials" — the space directory has three subfolders by those names (slugified), each with its own pages. Don't auto-extract a fourth group from a stray subfolder. 3. **Write SUMMARY.md to the explicit shape the user agreed.** The grammar that GitBook honors: ```markdown # Table of contents * [Space homepage](README.md) * [Top-level page A](top-level-a.md) * [Top-level page B](top-level-b.md) ## First group * [Page in group](first-group/page.md) * [Another page](first-group/another.md) ## Second group * [Page](second-group/page.md) ``` Key shape rules: - **README.md is on its own line at the very top, as a sibling**, not a parent. Other top-level pages follow as siblings. - **`## Group name` headings introduce groups.** Pages in a group are flat bullets directly under the heading — *not* indented under the README. - **Avoid mechanical "* README.md" + nested-everything-under-it.** That collapses the entire nav into one tree under the homepage and makes every page look like a sub-page of the homepage in the sidebar. - **Group names come from the user, not the folder names.** "concepts/" can be the folder slug, but the group heading might be "How it works" if that's clearer. - **One bullet per page, no extra formatting.** No bold, no descriptions in the SUMMARY — those live in the page frontmatter. 4. **Special-case patterns** that aren't plain bullets: - **OpenAPI auto-generated endpoint pages** use a fenced YAML block as the bullet content (`type: builtin:openapi` — see `references/api-cheatsheet.md`). - **External links** are `* [Title](https://...)` and render as outbound links in the nav. - **Cross-space links** in SUMMARY.md use the same `https://app.gitbook.com/s/<spaceId>/<path>` form as in body content. Path has no `.md` suffix. During scaffolding write the sentinel form (`XSPACE_<KEY>`); resolve after space creation. See `references/cross-space-links.md`. If your scaffolding helper auto-generates a SUMMARY.md by walking folders, **make it idempotent and skip files that already exist**. A user-edited SUMMARY.md should never be silently clobbered — that's how hand-tuned navigation gets lost. ### Per-page markdown — defer to write-gitbook, but reach for the rich blocks **For all markdown files** — `README.md`, `SUMMARY.md`, every page — follow the `write-gitbook` skill. It is the authoritative reference for: - **Frontmatter** including the `icon:` field. Icons are Font Awesome names without the `fa-` prefix (e.g. `book-open`, `bolt`, `house`, `code`, `puzzle-piece`, `id-card`, `circle-dollar-to-slot`). Don't invent names — pick from the Font Awesome catalogue. The example site uses these in nearly every page's frontmatter. - **Layout flags** including `layout: width: wide` (use selectively — on marketing-style landing pages, on changelog pages with the Updates timeline, on pages with multi-column blocks or genuinely wide tables. **Don't default to wide for every space homepage** — the GitBook default width is right for documentation, including documentation landing pages with card-tables. Wide is for hero-style marketing layouts, not normal docs.), `cover:` images, and per-page visibility flags (`title.visible`, `tableOfContents.visible`, etc.). - **`SUMMARY.md` grammar.** Strict format — one bullet per page, optional `## Group name` headings, no extra formatting. Plus the special `type: builtin:openapi` syntax for auto-generating endpoint pages from a spec. - **Rich blocks** — tabs, hints, steppers, columns, card-tables, expandables, embeds, conditional content with `{% if visitor.claims... %}`, the OpenAPI block, the **Updates** block (changelog), reusable content includes. - **GitBook-flavoured markdown differences** from CommonMark. Don't reinvent any of that here. The bundled `references/example-site/` is the best practical reference for what idiomatic content looks like. ### Choosing the right block — actively, not by default A common failure mode: Claude generates docs that *work* but use plain markdown for everything, missing the rich blocks that make GitBook sites feel like a real product. **The skill should actively reach for specialized blocks**, not fall back to bare prose-and-bullets. Concrete patterns to internalize: - **Changelogs** → `{% updates %}` block with `{% update date="..." tags="..." %}` entries. Auto-generates RSS, supports tags (defined in `.gitbook/tags.yaml`). Don't write `## YYYY-MM-DD` headings — that's the wrong shape. - **API endpoint references** → OpenAPI spec uploaded once, auto-generated pages via `type: builtin:openapi` in SUMMARY.md. Don't hand-author endpoint pages — they drift, and the spec is canonical anyway. If the user doesn't have a spec, offer to draft a minimal one rather than going prose-y. - **State machines, flows, sequences, simple architecture** → ` ```mermaid ` fenced blocks. Don't draw boxes-and-arrows in ASCII; Mermaid is supported, renders cleanly, and is screen-reader friendly. - **Space homepages** → use the GitBook default layout for normal docs landings (TOC visible, default width). Reach for `layout: width: wide` only when the page is genuinely marketing-style — a hero image, an unusually large card grid, a multi-column dashboard layout. The default is right for docs. - **"Choose your path" content** → card-tables (`<table data-view="cards">`). The HTML is verbose but the visual result beats any markdown alternative. - **Side-by-side intro patterns** → `{% columns %}` block. Two columns at 50/50 is the standard. - **Repeated boilerplate (3+ places)** → `.gitbook/includes/<name>.md` + `{% include "..." %}`. - **Repeated literals (env URLs, support email, version pin)** → `.gitbook/vars.yaml` + `<code class="expression">space.vars.<name></code>`. - **Multi-language code samples** → `{% tabs %}` block. - **Walkthroughs of 3+ ordered steps** → `{% stepper %}` block. The full block-by-block guide, with example invocations and a smell-vs-fix decision table, is in `references/block-ecosystem.md`. **Read it before generating any non-trivial page**, and walk the decision table for each content area being scaffolded — ask "is there a specialized block for this?" before defaulting to plain markdown. ### Cross-space links Multi-space sites *want* cross-space links — they're how a site feels like one connected product, not a bunch of separate manuals. **Don't duplicate content to avoid them, and don't drop them.** They're a first-class GitBook feature; the only twist is that they need real space IDs to render correctly, and IDs only exist after the site is created via the API. The pattern in markdown is just a regular link to the GitBook URL of the target space: