Typedoc tutorial | Typescript Documentation API generator
- Admin
- Sep 20, 2023
- Typescript
What is typedoc in typescript?
TypeDoc
is a Documentation API Generator for generating documentation for typescript applications.
This is similar to JSDoc, ESdoc, and JavaDoc.
Documentation for any project is one of the key factors for successful application development.
s
tool takes typescript files or typescript projects as input, parses it, and generates Documentation in a different format as output.
HTML is one of the generated formats that contains, Links, Styles, and HTML of code.
This will be generated by reading typescript code elements like classes, interfaces, and methods.
How to Install and Setup typedoc in the Typescript application?
Typedoc
can be used as a standalone NPM
command line or can integrate with a webpack
, gulp
, and grunt
tools.
Before installation of typedoc
,
First, Install nodejs software.
Please make sure that the npm
and node
commands should run successfully.
You can install it either globally or locally.
The -g
option will install globally, without the -g
option, and the `—save-dev option installs locally.
npm install -g typedoc
This installs globally and the typedoc
command will be available from the command line.
B:\Workspace\blog>typedoc --version
TypeDoc 0.12.0
Using TypeScript 3.0.3 from C:\Users\Kiran\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\typedoc\node_modules\typescript\lib
And, also you can configure the typedoc
command and run it as an npm command using the below configuration Add the below entry in package.json
"scripts":{
"tdocs":"npm run typedocs [options] "
}
Once the configuration is added, you can run it via the npm command “npm tdocs”.
typedoc command-line Options
Options provided with typedoc command
are a double hyphen(--)
.
Option | Description |
---|---|
out | It is the output Directory for which documentation is generated for it. |
model | Output mode of the compiled project ie file or modules |
theme | Specify theme for Generated documentation template, which can be the default, minimal, or path to the custom theme |
target | Configure EcmaScript js versions ES5, ES6 that need to compile with it |
include | It included all files for generation |
exclude | Excluding all files for generations |
typedoc generator Example
We will see how we will generate documentation for the Typescript file. First Create a typescript file - Animal.ts.
class Animal {
public nonveg: boolean;
constructor() {
console.log("new animal created");
}
eat(): void {
console.log("new animal Eat method");
}
}
class Lion extends Animal {
constructor() {
super();
this.nonveg = true;
}
eat(): void {
console.log("Lion Eat method");
}
}
class Cat extends Animal {
constructor() {
super();
this.nonveg = true;
}
eat(): void {
console.log("Cat Eat method");
}
}
How to Generate Html Documentation in Typescript?
Using the typedoc
command, please issue the below command
typedoc --out docs
And the output-generated documentation is below the screenshot

Typedoc
comes with tdconfig.json
files which contain configuration options required to generate documentation.
This file contains typescript compiler options and include
which files are included to generate Documentation.
The Exclude
option excludes the files for generations.

Typedoc bundler plugins
Typedoc
can be also used with JavaScript build tools. There are already plugins and npm packages available.
- Grunt - grunt-typedoc
- Gulp - gulp-typedoc
- Webpack - typedoc-webpack-plugin
Conclusion
Learn what is typedoc npm tool is, and install and set it up in the local environment.
How to generate documentation for Node javascript application with examples