Docs › Reference

The help centre

The API calls behind the help centre.

Part of the HTTP API reference.

Route: /^#\/help(?:\/([a-z0-9-]+))?(?:\/([a-z0-9-]+))?$/ → drawHelp(slug, anchor). The second capture is a heading on the page.

One call, once per session: GET /api/help (helpData), cached in HELP.data.

GET /api/help — every page and the table of contents

No parameters, no permission check beyond a session.

Docstring: "Every help page and the table of contents, in one answer. All of it at once — thirty pages of text is smaller than one screenshot — so searching the help is instant and needs no index on the server."

Why it is data and not rendered:

The documentation ships with the product, in help/: one Markdown file per page and help/index.json for the table of contents. Served as data and rendered by the screen, so the pages are versioned, sealed in the manifest and upgraded with the code they describe — the product and its documentation cannot drift apart by living in two places.

Response — help/index.json with a pages map added:

{
  "sections": [
    {"name": "Getting started",
     "pages": [{"slug": "first-steps", "title": "First steps", …}]}
  ],
  "pages": {
    "first-steps": "# First steps\n\n…"       // the raw Markdown
  }
}

Any top-level key named _ in index.json is dropped.

Refusal: 503 (the NotReady shape) when help/index.json is missing or unreadable:

{"error": "The help pages are missing or damaged.",
 "remedy": "Reinstall the release: the help/ folder ships with it."}

A page listed in the index whose .md file is missing is not a failure: its content becomes "# <title>\n\nThis page is missing."

A slug that does not match HELP_SLUG = ^[a-z0-9]+(?:-[a-z0-9]+)*$ is skipped entirely.

The whole body is cached on the modification times of every file in help/, so editing a page is picked up without a restart.