MkDocs File Filter Plugin

❗ This plugin is under early Alpha stage. Significant changes may occur. It may not yet be fully compatible with other MkDocs configurations and thus may break with some advanced configs. Once these have been resolved and all bugs have been ironed out, it will be moved to an upper stage.

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mkdocs-file-filter-plugin is a mkdocs plugin that allows you to exclude/include files using Unix-style wildcards (globs), regular expressions (regexes), .mkdocsignore (gitignore-style file) or Markdown/FrontMatter tags metadata.

• Installation
  • pip
  • Poetry
• Configuration
  • Basic
  • External config
  • Options
• Usage
  • Globs
  • Regexes
  • Tags
    • Tags metadata property
    • Custom metadata list
  • .mkdocsignore
  • Navigation filtering
  • Filter only documentation pages
  • Conflict behavior
• 3rd party plugins compatibility
• License

Installation

This package requires Python >=3.8 and MkDocs version 1.4.0 or higher.

pip

Install the plugin using pip:

pip install mkdocs-file-filter-plugin

Or include it in a requirements.txt file in your project:

mkdocs==1.4.*
mkdocs-file-filter-plugin

and run

pip install -r requirements.txt

Poetry

Install the plugin using Poetry:

poetry add mkdocs-file-filter-plugin

Configuration

Basic

Add a plugin configuration to mkdocs.yml - below example contains only example, to adjust config for your needs read Usage section:

# mkdocs.yml
plugins:
  - search # if you include another plugin, and want search you have to add it again
  - file-filter:
      filter_nav: true # default value
      exclude_glob:
        - 'exclude/this/path/**'
        - 'exclude/this/file/draft.md'
        - '*.tmp'
      exclude_regex:
        - '.*\.(tmp|bin|tar)$'
      exclude_tag:
        - draft
        - preview
      include_glob:
        - 'include/this/path/**'
        - 'include/this/file/Code-of-Conduct.md'
        - '*.png'
        - 'assets/**' # the material theme requires this folder
      include_regex:
        - '.*\.(js|css)$'
      include_tag:
        - released

⚠️ NOTE

If you have no plugins entry in your config file yet, you'll likely also want to add the search plugin. MkDocs enables it by default if there is no plugins entry set, but now you have to enable it explicitly.

More information about plugins in the MkDocs documentation.

External config

The plugin supports external files for the plugin configuration. If the external config file is specified, then plugin's config properties from mkdocs.yml are overwritten.

# mkdocs.yml
plugins:
  - search # if you include another plugin, and want search you have to add it again
  - file-filter:
      config: !ENV [MY_FILE_FILTER_CONFIG, '.file-filter.yml']
      # config: path/to/config/file/.file-filter.yml

💡 HINT

For external file config, you can use MkDocs Environment Variables to set the desired file dynamically. A useful case for serving the site with different content based on stage/environment/etc. Works well with CI/CD automation.

External plugin config file example:

# .file-filter.yml
enabled: !ENV [CI, true]
enabled_on_serve: true
filter_nav: true
mkdocsignore: false
exclude_glob:
  - 'exclude/this/path/*'
  - 'exclude/this/file/draft.md'
  - '*.tmp'
exclude_regex:
  - '.*\.(tmp|bin|tar)$'
exclude_tag:
  - draft
include_glob:
  - 'include/this/path/*'
  - 'include/this/file/Code-of-Conduct.md'
  - '*.png'
  - 'assets/**' # the material theme requires this folder
include_regex:
  - '.*\.(js|css)$'
include_tag:
  - prod

⚠️ NOTE

• External config uses exactly the same properties as plugin's config in the mkdocs.yml except config property.

• External config support MkDocs Environment Variables as well.

Options

The below table shows all supported options by the plugin.

Option	Type	Default	Description
config	string	none	Path to external plugin's configuration file
enabled	bool	true	Turn on/off plugin without removing/adding plugin's config from mkdocs.yml
enabled_on_serve	bool	true	Turn on/off plugin on serve command
only_doc_pages	bool	false	Filtering limited only to the documentation pages (markdown files), the rest included by default.
filter_nav	bool	true	Remove nav items pointed to excluded files
mkdocsignore	bool	false	Use gitignore-style file for patterns
mkdocsignore_file	string	.mkdocsignore	Path to gitignore-style file with patterns
metadata_property	string	tags	What Markdown/FrontMatter metadata property list will be used for checking keywords
exclude_tag	[string]	none	List of excluded tags
include_tag	[string]	none	List of included tags
exclude_glob	[string]	none	Exclude glob patterns
include_glob	[string]	none	Include glob patterns
exclude_regex	[string]	none	Exclude regex patterns
include_regex	[string]	none	Include regex patterns

Usage

⚠️ NOTE

• If you do not provide patterns, everything will stay the same - standard MkDocs behavior - include all.

• Because of the YAML syntax specifics, glob/regex patterns that start with a punctuation mark must be quoted.

• The preferred way for quotes is to use single quotes ' rather than double quotes " - regex backslash escapes are preserved correctly without being doubled up.

• You can combine all patterns - globs/regexes with tags, and mkdocsignore.

Globs

# mkdocs.yml
plugins:
  - file-filter:
      filter_nav: true # default value
      exclude_glob:
        - 'drafts/**'
      include_glob:
        - 'drafts/**/preview-*.md'

RESULT: exclude all content from drafts and related subdirectories, but include all markdown files with prefix starting preview from drafts and related subdirectories.

⚠️ NOTE

Glob patterns relative to your docs_dir setting from mkdocs.yml

Regexes

# mkdocs.yml
plugins:
  - file-filter:
      filter_nav: true # default value
      exclude_regex:
        - '.*\.(tmp|bin|tar)$'
      include_regex:
        - '.*\.(js|css)$'

RESULT: exclude all files with tmp, bin or tar extension and include all files with js, or css extension.

⚠️ NOTE

Regex patterns relative to your docs_dir setting from mkdocs.yml

Tags

You can filter your content based on the Markdown metadata (often called front-matter) keywords.

Tags metadata property

By default plugin filter files using tags property of your Markdown metadata.

# mkdocs.yml
plugins:
  - file-filter:
      filter_nav: true # default value
      exclude_tag:
        - abc
        - draft
        - alpha
      include_tag:
        - foo
        - release
        - beta

fileA.md metadata example:

<!-- fileA.md -->
---
tags:
  - foo
  - bar
---

# Markdown with tags metadata

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet...

fileB.md metadata example:

<!-- fileB.md -->
---
tags:
  - abc
  - xyz
---

# Markdown with tags metadata

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet...

RESULT: only fileA.md will be included.

Custom metadata list

Because the tags property is very often used to render tags on the site, in some scenarios, you'd like to filter files using specific tag keywords and avoid rendering them. In that case, you can create a custom metadata list and use it for filtering without affecting tags' used for rendering.

Set metadata_property with your custom list property, e.g., labels for this example.

# mkdocs.yml
plugins:
  - file-filter:
      filter_nav: true # default value
      metadata_property: labels
      exclude_tag:
        - foo
        - draft
        - alpha
      include_tag:
        - xyz
        - release
        - beta

fileA.md metadata example:

<!-- fileA.md -->
---
tags:
  - foo
  - bar
labels:
  - draft
  - internal
---

# Markdown with metadata - tags and custom list

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet...

fileB.md metadata example:

<!-- fileB.md -->
---
tags:
  - foo
  - bar
labels:
  - release
  - v1
---

# Markdown with metadata - tags and custom list

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet...

RESULT: only fileB.md will be included.

.mkdocsignore

Setting mkdocsignore to true will exclude the dirs/files specified in the .mkdocsignore. Use the same syntax as you use for gitignore.

Optionally you can set mkdocsignore_file parameter with your path to .mkdocsignore file. By default, the plugin uses .mkdocsignore from the root of your MkDocs.

Example config for mkdocsignore.

# mkdocs.yml
plugins:
  - file-filter:
      filter_nav: true # default value
      mkdocsignore: true # default: false
      mkdocsignore_file: 'custom/path/.mkdocsignore' # optional, relative to mkdocs.yml, default: .mkdocsignore

Example .mkdocsignore file.

# MkDocs
docs/test/**
docs/**/draft-*.md

RESULT: exclude all content from docs/test and related subdirectories and all markdown files with prefix starting draft from docs and related subdirectories.

⚠️ NOTE

.mkdocsignore patterns relative to your root.

Navigation filtering

Suppose you customized MkDocs navigation configuration, and your nav contains elements defined in exclude patterns. In that case, the default MkDocs behavior is to render navigation to a non-existing file, and generated site gives 404.

By default, the plugin filters those cases and removes not working navigation items.

You can control the plugin's behavior to explicitly disable that option by setting filter_nav: false.

Example mkdocs.yml config.

# mkdocs.yml
nav:
- Foo: exclude/this/path
- Bar: exclude/this/file/draft.md
- Abc:
    - About: exclude/this/path/about.md
    - Contact: include/this/file/contact.md
- Xyz: path/xyz.md

plugins:
  - file-filter:
      filter_nav: true # default value
      exclude_glob:
        - 'exclude/this/path/**'
        - 'exclude/this/file/draft.md'

Nav results with filter_nav: false:

- Foo: exclude/this/path # -> 404
- Bar: exclude/this/file/draft.md # -> 404
- Abc:
    - About: exclude/this/path/about.md # -> 404
    - Contact: include/this/file/contact.md
- Xyz: path/xyz.md

Nav results with filter_nav: true:

- Abc:
    - Contact: include/this/file/contact.md
- Xyz: path/xyz.md

⚠️ NOTE

If you use any other 3rd-party plugins that modify navigation (e.g., mkdocs-awesome-pages-plugin) - first, test and evaluate expected behavior. Plugin configuration order may impact results.

In most cases is recommended to transform navigation first and next filter with the file-filter plugin.

Filter only documentation pages

By default, the plugin analyzes all files required to build a site. It includes the theme and all files inside docs like jpg, png, etc. By setting the only_doc_pages option to true, the plugin will only analyze and applies rules to documentation pages (markdown files). All rules that apply to non-documentation pages, such as regexes or globs with patterns related to jpg, png, tmp, css, etc, will be omitted.

Example mkdocs.yml config.

# mkdocs.yml
plugins:
  - file-filter:
      only_doc_pages: true # default value is false
      exclude_regex:
        - '.*\.md$'
      include_tag:
        - released

RESULT: Include only markdown files with the meta-data tag released and all theme and other files under the docs folder like images, etc.

Conflict behavior

It is possible to exclude and include will have conflict. For example, you could exclude drafts/** but include *.md. In that case, include has higher priority over exclude. So all *.md files from the drafts folder will be included.

3rd party plugins compatibility

This plugin has been tested with Material for MkDocs theme, and two 3rd party plugins that nicely complement each other.

• mkdocs-awesome-pages-plugin plugin allows you to customize how your pages show up in the navigation of your MkDocs without having to configure the entire structure in your mkdocs.yml
• mkdocs-exclude-unused-files cleans up mkdocs output from files that are not referenced in pages (useful to have the smaller artifact and not exposing not attached files after filtration with the file-filter).

Example mkdocs.yml config with the proper order of plugins.

# mkdocs.yml
plugins:
  - search
  - awesome-pages #before file-filter
    # awesome-pages config
  - file-filter:
      only_doc_pages: true
      mkdocsignore: true
      exclude_glob:
        - "**/draft-*.md"
        - "**/preview-*.md"
      include_regex:
        - "tags.md"
      include_tag:
        - released
        - public preview
      exclude_tag:
        - draft
  - mkdocs_exclude_unused_files #after file-filter
    # exclude-unused-files config

License

mkdocs-file-filter-plugin is distributed under the terms of the MIT license.