Henkster72 / portal

Internet Computer Developer Portal

ICP developer portal

The ICP developer portal brings together all the resources needed for developers to build on the Internet Computer. Primarily, this repo hosts the ICP Developer Docs but also includes the Ecosystem Project Showcase, community tooling page, and the internetcomputer.org 'How it works' series.

The ICP developer portal uses Docusaurus.

Developer documentation

Repo structure

docs
├── concepts
├── developer-docs
│   ├── backend // programming language documentation
│   │   ├── motoko
│   │   ├── rust
│   │   ├── python
│   │   ├── solidity
│   │   ├── typescript
│   ├── daos // NNS & SNS documentation
│   │   ├── nns
│   │   ├── sns
│   ├── defi // token and defi documentation
│   │   ├── asset-custody
│   │   ├── icp-tokens
│   │   ├── icrc-1
│   │   ├── nfts
│   │   ├── rosetta
│   ├── developer-tools // CLI tools, IDEs, CDKs, and agent documentation
│   │   ├── cli-tools
│   │   ├── ide
│   │   ├── off-chain
│   │   ├── on-chain
│   ├── getting-started // introductory onboarding documentation
│   │   ├── cycles
│   │   ├── deploy
│   │   ├── install
│   │   ├── quickstart
│   ├── multi-chain // multi-chain integration documentation
│   │   ├── bitcoin
│   │   ├── ethereum
│   ├── security
│   ├── smart-contracts // canister documentation
│   │   ├── advanced-features
│   │   ├── best-practices
│   │   ├── call
│   │   ├── candid
│   │   ├── deploy
│   │   ├── encryption
│   │   ├── maintain
│   │   ├── overview
│   │   ├── test
│   │   ├── topping-up
│   │   ├── write
│   ├── web-apps // frontend and web app documentation
│   │   ├── application-frontends
│   │   ├── browser-js
│   │   ├── custom-domains
│   │   ├── frameworks
│   │   ├── http-compatible-canisters
│   │   ├── user-login
├── motoko // Motoko documentation - submodule
├── references // reference documentation
├── samples // sample projects - submodule
├── tutorials // tutorial series (developer journey, hackathon prep course, etc). 

Contributing to the Dev Docs

Contributions must:

• Must follow the developer docs style guide.
• Must include document tags.
• Must include SEO keywords.
• Must be in .mdx file format to support the previous two components.
• Must be registered in /sidebars.js, otherwise, it will not appear in the side navigation bar.
• Make sure that the .github/CODEOWNERS file is filled with new documents that you added. This way we can ensure that future Pull Requests are reviewed by the right people.

If proposed documentation additions do not follow the above guidelines, they will need to be revised.

Adding a document

To add a new documentation page, first find the category on the sidebar that you'd like to create a new document under. Then, navigate into that subdirectory in the repo and create a new documentation page. See the repo structure outline for more information.

All documents must be in .mdx format.

Format and style guidelines

The developer documentation must follow the provided style guide to be submitted:

Developer docs style guide.

This style guide includes the standards for capitalization, word choice, formatting, etc.

Document tags

Document tags are required for all documentation pages. They can be added beneath the title heading (# Title) of the page.

import { MarkdownChipRow } from "/src/components/Chip/MarkdownChipRow";

# Title

<MarkdownChipRow labels={["Beginner", "Motoko", "Tutorial"]} />

Documentation pages should include two types of keywords:

• Document skill level:

  • Beginner

  • Intermediate

  • Advanced

• Document type:

  • Concept

  • Tutorial

  • Getting started

  • Reference (Reference pages do not require a skill level tag)

Additional, optional (but recommended) tags include:

- Language

	- Motoko / Rust / Python / Typescript / Solidity

- Multi-chain integration
	
	- Bitcoin / Ethereum

- Governance (for NNS/SNS docs)

SEO keywords

SEO keywords are required for all documentation pages. They can be added to the frontmatter of the document (first three lines) using the following format:

---
keywords: [intermediate, browser js, javascript, agent js, agents]
---

Keywords must include the words included as document tags (experience level, document type) at minimum. Additional SEO keywords can be added at the author's discretion.

Tooltips

Tooltips are pieces of text, usually glossary keywords that display an info box when moused over. Tooltips are optional but recommended for content tagged as 'Beginner'.

To use tooltips, first import the necessary module:

import { GlossaryTooltip } from "/src/components/Tooltip/GlossaryTooltip";

Then, use the tooltip in line with the code:

I'm a <GlossaryTooltip>canister</GlossaryTooltip> deployed on ICP.

The word included within the <GlossaryTooltip> tags must be defined in the file /static/glossary.txt in the format:

word=definition.

Please make sure you put an = equal sign between the term and the definition, and keep each term + definition pair on a single line.

Failing to do so will break the code that auto-populates the Tooltip with the appropriate definition.

Submodules

The developer docs utilize submodules for several subfolders of documentation. To edit these pages, changes must be made in the submodule's repo and merged into that repo. Then you must open a PR in this repo that pulls the latest submodule updates to apply the changes.

The following submoules and their corresponding repos are currently used:

• SDK

  • /docs/current/developer-docs/developer-tools/cli-tools/cli-reference/
  • GitHub Repo: https://github.com/dfinity/sdk.git

• Motoko

  • /docs/current/motoko/main/base/
  • GitHub Repo: https://github.com/dfinity/motoko.git

• quill

  • /docs/current/developer-docs/developer-tools/cli-tools/quill
  • GitHub Repo: https://github.com/dfinity/quill.git

• Internet Identity

  • /docs/current/references/ii-spec
  • GitHub Repo: https://github.com/dfinity/internet-identity.git

• Interface Spec

  • /docs/current/references/ic-interface-spec
  • GitHub Repo: https://github.com/dfinity/interface-spec.git

• Sample projects

  • /docs/current/references/samples
  • GitHub Repo: https://github.com/dfinity/examples.git
  • Note: This submodule intentionally uses .md files instead of .mdx files. Therefore, these pages do not support components such as tags and tooltips.

• dfxvm

  • /docs/current/developer-docs/developer-tools/cli-tools/dfxvm
  • GitHub Repo: https://github.com/dfinity/dfxvm.git

• Response verification

  • /docs/current/developer-docs/web-apps/http-compatible-canisters/custom-http-canisters
  • GitHub Repo: https://github.com/dfinity/response-verification

Updating submodules

To update all submodules, run the command:

git submodule update --remote

Reverting submodule changes

To revert submodule changes in a PR that did not intend to update submodules, run the commands:

git checkout master
git submodule update
git checkout <your branch>
git add * # especially submodules

Embedding YouTube videos

You can embed YouTube videos by adding the following iframe code, replacing the src= link with the YouTube link you'd like to embed:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/b9_PsPQ24tE?si=0w2pIVuSJFhRWAeX" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Contribution workflow

Here is a description of how a contribution should be made to the developer portal:

1. The contributor creates a fork/branch where proposed changes are made.
2. A pull request (PR) is created from that branch/fork to master. A build preview is generated and the reviewers can directly check the preview website.
3. After the pull request is merged into master, CI/CD will deploy the contents to ICP. The changes made will appear on the website.

Deployed previews

Whenever a Pull Request for a branch is created on the repository, a GitHub bot will comment on the PR with a preview link once one has been generated.

You can view the status of the preview build job by navigating to the bottom of the PR and viewing the 'Build deployment preview' job. If this job fails, the preview will not be shown. Any errors in the build must be resolved before the PR can be approved and merged.

Best practices

The portal repo uses git submodules to distribute content authoring across several repositories. This can prove challenging if you want to make updates to docs that refer to stale content in other repos. Here are some best practices that may prove helpful when contributing to portal.

1. Don't commit changes to submodules. a. Check your staged changes and see if any files are nested within the submodules directory. If so - revert them. Those changes must go into the corresponding submodule repository.
2. Be wary of the order of operations when it comes to submodules. a. If you do intend to make changes to content under submodules, the changes need to be merged into the respective repo first. b. Once the change has been merged, you will also need to update portal's ref to that repo. You can do that by running git submodule update --remote --merge
3. Build locally. a. You can save yourself some headaches if you run npm run build locally before you push your changes. If the build fails locally, it will almost certainly fail in CI. b. Our CI requires that a set of checks pass before a PR can be merged. One of those checks is whether the code can be deployed to a canister. You do not need to deploy a canister locally, but at the very least npm run build should pass.

Changing the roadmap

The roadmap items are stored as markdown files inside the roadmap directory.

The items are grouped by domain and status.

roadmap
├── 1_core-protocol
│   ├── deployed
│   │   ├── network_performance.md
│   │   └── nodes_can_be_reassigned.md
│   ├── in-progress
│   │   ├── 1_btc-integration.md
│   │   ├── 2_tecdsa.md
│   │   ├── 3_https-outcalls.md
│   │   ├── 4_high-replication-subnets.md
│   │   └── 5_deterministic-time-slicing.md
│   ├── index.md
│   └── pending
│       └── eth-integration.md
├── 2_boundary_nodes
│   ├── deployed
│   │   └── icos-nodes.md
│   ├── in-progress
│   │   ├── 1_seo_and_streaming.md
│   │   ├── 2_asset_canister_caching.md
...

• To change the title, links, or ETA of an item, edit the metadata section at the top of each markdown document.
• To change the status of an item, eg. from in-progress to deployed, move the file to the deployed directory.
• Items are listed in alphabetical order of their filename, to enforce a certain ordering between items you can prefix the filenames with numbers.
• To mark an item as a community request, set is_community: true in the item's metadata.

Each domain folder contains an index.md file which adds metadata, like a title, a description, and cover images.

Changing the 'how it works' content

The 'How it works' page cards and subpages are stored as markdown files inside the how-it-works directory.

how-it-works
├── 1_about
│   ├── 01-overview-of-the-internet-computer.card.md
│   ├── 01-overview-of-the-internet-computer.subpage.md
│   ├── canister-lifecycle.card.md
│   ├── canister-lifecycle.subpage.md
│   └── index.md
├── 2_featured
│   ├── direct-integration-with-bitcoin.card.md
│   ├── direct-integration-with-bitcoin.subpage.md
│   ├── index.md
│   ├── sns.card.md
│   ├── threshold-ecdsa-signing.card.md
│   ├── threshold-ecdsa-signing.subpage.md

The directory contains markdown files ending in .card.md and .subpage.md.

The .card.md files will show up as part of the /how-it-works page, under the section they are grouped in (eg. Featured).

The .subpage.md files will each generate a subpage under /how-it-works/, based on the files' metadata and content:

• The slug parameter will determine the final URL, eg. the slug canister-lifecycle will generate the page /how-it-works/canister-lifecycle.
• The title, abstract (optional), and coverImage will determine how the page looks when shared on social media

Adding documentation for community-created agents and CDKs

The agents and CDKs sections should not only contain docs for DFINITY-created agents and CDKs. We therefore invite other projects to:

• Link to their own agents or CDKs on the respective index pages (the files to be edited are in docs/developer-docs/build/agents/index.md or docs/developer-docs/smart-contracts/write/overview.mdx).
• Add their own documentation as a folder under Agents or CDKs.

Adding community-created developer tools

We invite developers to add their ICP-focused developer tools to the developer tools page by appending an entry to the communityToolingItems array in src/components/Common/toolingItems.ts.

Please make sure to add appropriate tags to make the tool easy to discover for other devs. Avoid introducing new tags if possible.

Community-created sample projects

You can submit your sample project to be displayed on the samples page.

Add your submission to the community projects file and open a pull request. You can use an editor with TypeScript support to make sure your submission follows the schema.

Showcase submission guidelines

Disclaimer: You should have a working canister for your product to be showcased. Our team will review the PR and get back to you for any further questions. In the meantime, please contact [e-mail] if you have any questions.

Add your project to the end of showcase.json. Refer to the object schema below for the required fields.

Make up a unique project id. For example, if your project is called Awesome ICP Project!, your project id could be awesome-icp-project.

Your logo/video/screenshots files should be prefixed with your project id, and placed in the /static/img/showcase folder. For example, if your project id is awesome-icp-project, your logo file should be named awesome-icp-project_logo.webp and placed in the /static/img/showcase folder.

The Ecosystem Helper is an on-chain tool that helps you submit your project to internetcomputer.org. It helps with image conversion, resizing, previewing the project cards used throughout the website, and it produces a valid JSON document you can use. Fill out the form and download the asset bundle in a zip file.

Asset guidelines

Asset		Requirements	Format	Notes
logo	required	112x112px	webp/svg/png	Currently displayed 56x56px
screenshots	optional	1024x576px	webp/jpg	The schema supports multiple files, but only the first one will be displayed
video	optional	max 10MB	webm/mp4	If there is a video file specified, it will be displayed instead of a screenshot.

Tags

The list of tags is not final, and will be updated as the project evolves. For now, the following tags are available:

• Wallet
• Bitcoin
• NFT
• SocialFi
• DeFi
• Games
• DAO
• Metaverse
• Tools / Infrastructure

Object schema

  {
    id: string,
    name: string,
    oneLiner: string, // short description of the project
    website: string, // URL starting with `https://`

    tags: ('Wallet' | 'Bitcoin' | 'NFT' | 'SocialFi' | 'DeFi' | 'Games' | 'DAO' | 'Metaverse' | 'Tools / Infrastructure')[],
    description: string, // description of the project
    stats: string, // eg. "10,000 users"
    logo: string, // url to logo file, eg. /img/showcase/awesome-icp-project_logo.webp
    
    usesInternetIdentity: boolean,
    authOrigins?: string[]; // optional additional (URL) origins that can be utilized for signing in to your dapp

    github?: string, // full URL to github repo, if available
    youtube?: string, // full URL to a YouTube video or channel, if available
    twitter?: string, // full URL to a twitter account, if available

    screenshots?: string[], // optional array of urls to screenshot files

    video?: string, // optional url to video file, eg. /img/showcase/awesome-icp-project_video.webm
    videoContentType?: 'video/webm' | 'video/mp4', // to feed into the type attribute of the video/source element

    submittableId?: string, // optional id of the submittable form
  },

Running a local development instance of this repo

Requirements

• Node v18

Install and run locally

While modifying documentation in the repository, you can preview the changes locally by executing the following commands.

cd portal/
git submodule update --init
npm ci
npm start

The developer portal frontend should appear in your browser under http://localhost:3000.

To preview a specific locale in the context of an internationalization contribution, start the docs with the following command:

npm start -- --locale <locale>