Documentation

Metadata

The front-matter fields Laradocs understands.

On this page 9

Each page may declare YAML front-matter. Every field is optional.

markdown

---

title: Getting Started
description: Install and configure the package.
slug: getting-started
order: 2
hidden: false
group: Basics
badge: New
icon: rocket
tags: [intro, setup]
updated_at: 2026-06-01
author: Pete
layout: docs
image: /og/getting-started.png
redirect: null

---

Field reference

Field Type Purpose
title string Display title; falls back to the filename.
description string Used for the <meta name="description"> tag and the page subtitle.
slug string Override the URL slug — see Routing.
order int Sort order within a section (ascending, default 999).
hidden bool Hide from sidebar and listings while keeping the URL reachable.
group string Bucket the page under a sidebar heading and a top-level tab — see Grouping.
eyebrow string Small label above the page title; defaults to group when omitted.
badge string Tiny pill rendered next to the sidebar link (e.g. New, Beta).
icon string Free-form icon name available to custom views/macros.
tags string|array Free-form labels exposed via $document->metadata->tags.
updated_at string Last-update date; rendered in the page footer (e.g. "21st June 2026").
author string Author name; exposed to custom views.
layout string Override the Blade layout used to render this page.
image string Social / OG image URL — see SEO.
redirect string 301-redirect this slug to another page or absolute URL.
priority float Override the sitemap <priority> for this page (0.0–1.0).
search bool Set to false to exclude this page from the search index while keeping its URL reachable (default true).
search_rank float Rank multiplier applied to search results. Values above 1.0 boost this page; values below 1.0 demote it. Combines with the config-level search.rank pattern. Applies to both the JSON and Scout engines.
Important

Unknown keys are preserved and reachable via $document->metadata->get('your_key') — useful for custom views or macros without forking the package.

Note

title, description, image, author and tags also feed the page's SEO and social meta. For SEO-specific control — a different search title, robots, a canonical URL or a noindex flag — add a dedicated seo: block. See the SEO guide for the full reference.

How fields are used

title, description, eyebrow

The page header renders an eyebrow (above the title), the title (h1), and the description (paragraph). When eyebrow: isn't set, the value of group: is used. The description is also emitted into the page <meta name="description">.

order, group, hidden, badge

These control how the page appears in navigation:

markdown

---

title: Caching
group: Guide
order: 3
badge: Updated

---
  • group: produces both a sidebar section heading and a top-level tab — see Grouping.
  • order: controls position within the group (lower = earlier).
  • hidden: true removes the page from sidebar and tabs while keeping it reachable by URL.
  • badge: renders a small accent pill beside the sidebar link.

updated_at, author, image, tags

Surface metadata exposed to your templates. updated_at is rendered in the page footer as a human-readable date — e.g. "Last updated 21st June 2026". The display format is controlled by locale.date_format in the config (PHP date() format string, default jS F Y; override with LARADOCS_DATE_FORMAT). Bare YAML dates (updated_at: 2026-06-21) and quoted strings (updated_at: "2026-06-21") are both handled correctly. The rest are available via $document->metadata->author, $document->metadata->image, and $document->metadata->tags — wire them into custom views as needed.

The source Laradocs uses for the footer date is configurable. By default it reads updated_at front-matter only. Set ui.last_updated_source in config/laradocs.php (or the LARADOCS_LAST_UPDATED_SOURCE env var) to one of:

Value Behaviour
front_matter updated_at front-matter only (default). Nothing shown if the key is absent.
mtime File system modification time, formatted with locale.date_format.
front_matter_or_mtime updated_at when present, otherwise the file's mtime. Both formatted with locale.date_format.

For complete control, register a closure in your service provider. It receives the Document and returns a display string (or null to hide the date):

php
use Laradocs\Documents\Document;
use Laradocs\Support\LastUpdatedConfig;

LastUpdatedConfig::setResolver(function (Document $document): ?string {
    return $document->metadata->updatedAt
        ?? date('d M Y', $document->modifiedAt);
});

A registered closure always takes precedence over the config value. Pass null to setResolver() to clear it and revert to the config.

tags also drive the auto-generated tag index pages: each page's tags link out to a listing of everything sharing that topic.

author, image and tags also feed the page's SEO meta (see below).

SEO and social meta

title, description, image, author and tags are used to build each page's <title>, meta description, Open Graph / Twitter cards and JSON-LD automatically. For SEO-specific control that shouldn't change what renders on the page, add a dedicated seo: block — its values win:

markdown

---

title: Internal Notes
description: Shown as the page subtitle.
seo:
  title: A different title, just for search engines
  description: A different description, just for the meta tags.
  image: /og/custom.png
  robots: noindex, nofollow
  canonical: https://acme.test/canonical/url
  type: article
  section: Guides

---
seo: key Purpose
title Override the SEO/social title only (the on-page <h1> is unchanged).
description Override the meta / social description only.
image Open Graph / Twitter image.
author Author meta + schema.
tags article:tag entries.
robots Robots directive, e.g. noindex, nofollow.
canonical Canonical URL for this page.
type Open Graph type (article, website, …).
section Open Graph article:section; defaults to group.

Two shortcuts are also recognised at the top level: noindex: true (expands to robots: noindex, nofollow) and published_at: / date: (sets the Open Graph article publication time). See the full SEO guide for site-wide defaults and examples.

layout

Override the Blade layout used for this page:

markdown

---

title: Embed
layout: vendor.acme.embed

---

If the layout isn't found, the default laradocs::layout is used.

redirect

Bounce visitors elsewhere — for renames or merges. Accepts a relative slug or an absolute URL:

markdown

---

redirect: guide/routing

---
markdown

---

redirect: https://example.com/docs/old

---

Relative values resolve through route('laradocs.show', …) so they follow your configured route prefix.

Custom keys

Anything not listed above ends up in extras and reads back via $document->metadata->get('key', $default). This is the recommended extension point for custom view logic — define keys once in front-matter, read them in a published Blade view.

Edit this page