GitLab /help

Every GitLab instance includes documentation at /help (https://gitlab.example.com/help) that matches the version of the instance. For example, https://gitlab.com/help.

The documentation available online at https://docs.gitlab.com is deployed every hour from the default branch of GitLab, Omnibus, Runner, Charts, and Operator. After a merge request that updates documentation is merged, it is available online in an hour or less.

However, it’s only available at /help on self-managed instances in the next released version. The date an update is merged can impact which self-managed release the update is present in.

For example:

  1. A merge request in gitlab updates documentation. It has a milestone of 14.4, with an expected release date of 2021-10-22.
  2. It is merged on 2021-10-19 and available online the same day at https://docs.gitlab.com.
  3. GitLab 14.4 is released on 2021-10-22, based on the gitlab codebase from 2021-10-18 (one day before the update was merged).
  4. The change shows up in the 14.5 self-managed release, due to missing the release cutoff for 14.4.

The exact cutoff date for each release is flexible, and can be sooner or later than expected due to holidays, weekends or other events. In general, MRs merged by the 17th should be present in the release on the 22nd, though it is not guaranteed. If it is important that a documentation update is present in that month’s release, merge it as early as possible.

Linking to /help

When you’re building a new feature, you may need to link to the documentation from the GitLab application. This is usually done in files inside the app/views/ directory, with the help of the help_page_path helper method.

The help_page_path contains the path to the document you want to link to, with the following conventions:

  • It’s relative to the doc/ directory in the GitLab repository.
  • It omits the .md extension.
  • It doesn’t end with a forward slash (/).

The help text follows the Pajamas guidelines.

Linking to /help in HAML

Use the following special cases depending on the context, ensuring all link text is inside _() so it can be translated:

  • Linking to a doc page. In its most basic form, the HAML code to generate a link to the /help page is:

    = link_to _('Learn more.'), help_page_path('user/permissions'), target: '_blank', rel: 'noopener noreferrer'

  • Linking to an anchor link. Use anchor as part of the help_page_path method:

    = link_to _('Learn more.'), help_page_path('user/permissions', anchor: 'anchor-link'), target: '_blank', rel: 'noopener noreferrer'

  • Using links inline of some text. First, define the link, and then use it. In this example, link_start is the name of the variable that contains the link:

    - link = link_to('', help_page_path('user/permissions'), target: '_blank', rel: 'noopener noreferrer')
%p= safe_format(_("This is a text describing the option/feature in a sentence. %{link_start}Learn more.%{link_end}"), tag_pair(link, :link_start, :link_end))

  • Using a button link. Useful in places where text would be out of context with the rest of the page layout:

    = link_to _('Learn more.'), help_page_path('user/permissions'),  class: 'btn btn-info', target: '_blank', rel: 'noopener noreferrer'

Linking to /help in JavaScript

To link to the documentation from a JavaScript or a Vue component, use the helpPagePath function from help_page_helper.js:

import { helpPagePath } from '~/helpers/help_page_helper';

helpPagePath('user/permissions', { anchor: 'anchor-link' })
// evaluates to '/help/user/permissions#anchor-link' for GitLab.com

This is preferred over static paths, as the helper also works on instances installed under a relative URL.

Linking to /help in Ruby

To link to the documentation from within Ruby code, use the following code block as a guide, ensuring all link text is inside _() so it can be translated:

docs_link = link_to _('Learn more.'), help_page_url('user/permissions', anchor: 'anchor-link'), target: '_blank', rel: 'noopener noreferrer'
safe_format(_('This is a text describing the option/feature in a sentence. %{docs_link}'), docs_link: docs_link)

In cases where you need to generate a link from outside of views/helpers, where the link_to and help_page_url methods are not available, use the following code block as a guide where the methods are fully qualified:

docs_link = ActionController::Base.helpers.link_to _('Learn more.'), Rails.application.routes.url_helpers.help_page_url('user/permissions', anchor: 'anchor-link'), target: '_blank', rel: 'noopener noreferrer'
safe_format(_('This is a text describing the option/feature in a sentence. %{docs_link}'), docs_link: docs_link)

Do not use include ActionView::Helpers::UrlHelper just to make the link_to method available as you might see in some existing code. Read more in issue 340567.

/help tests

Several RSpec tests are run to ensure GitLab documentation renders and works correctly. In particular, that main docs landing page works correctly from /help. For example, GitLab.com’s /help.