# Documentation tool for chef cookbooks

**URL:** <https://discourse.chef.io/t/documentation-tool-for-chef-cookbooks/3379>\
**Category:** Chef Infra (archive)\
**Created:** [December 8, 2012, 6:06pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/documentation-tool-for-chef-cookbooks/3379 "2012-12-08T18:06:47Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Oleg\_Volotov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/edb3f5/32.png) [@Oleg\_Volotov](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Oleg_Volotov)\
**Post date:** [December 8, 2012, 6:06pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/documentation-tool-for-chef-cookbooks/3379/1 "2012-12-08T18:06:47Z")

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Hi,

I don’t know, but give it some tools to auto generate documentation files in md, html or something else for my cookbooks?

Thanks,  
Oleg

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**Author:** ![Alfredo\_Palhares](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/alfredo_palhares/32/335_2.png) [@Alfredo\_Palhares](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Alfredo_Palhares)\
**Post date:** [December 10, 2012, 3:08pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/documentation-tool-for-chef-cookbooks/3379/2 "2012-12-10T15:08:05Z")

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> I don't know, but give it some tools to auto generate documentation files in md, html or something else for my cookbooks?  
> There is yard-chef[1] not sure about how functional it is tough

[1] [GitHub - rightscale-cookbooks/yard-chef](https://github.com/rightscale/yard-chef)

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**Author:** ![Oleg\_Volotov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/edb3f5/32.png) [@Oleg\_Volotov](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Oleg_Volotov)\
**Post date:** [December 10, 2012, 3:25pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/documentation-tool-for-chef-cookbooks/3379/3 "2012-12-10T15:25:24Z")

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Ok this one option, but are there some other tools, too?

> > I don't know, but give it some tools to auto generate documentation  
> > files in md, html or something else for my cookbooks?  
> > There is yard-chef[1] not sure about how functional it is tough
> 
> [1] [GitHub - rightscale-cookbooks/yard-chef](https://github.com/rightscale/yard-chef)

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**Author:** ![steve](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/steve/32/294_2.png) [@steve](https://discourse.chef.io/u/steve)\
**Post date:** [December 10, 2012, 7:16pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/documentation-tool-for-chef-cookbooks/3379/4 "2012-12-10T19:16:04Z")

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I did a brief survey of tools a few months ago and yard-chef seemed to be  
the best available option (in terms of being the most intuitive blend of  
presentation and implementation). There's definitely some improvements  
that need to happen before it can really be what I would call an  
indispensable tool to add to your pipeline. I just haven't had the time to  
dig into figuring out all the parser stuff necessary to get attribute  
documentation working the way most of us internally are documenting them  
(i.e., not in metadata.rb but in the individual attributes files). The  
docstring coverage reports are awesome, though.

Really looking forward to the next formal release of yard-chef, though. 😃

On Mon, Dec 10, 2012 at 7:25 AM, Oleg Volotov [oleg.volotov@gmx.de](mailto:oleg.volotov@gmx.de) wrote:

> Ok this one option, but are there some other tools, too?
> 
> > > I don't know, but give it some tools to auto generate documentation  
> > > files in md, html or something else for my cookbooks?  
> > > There is yard-chef[1] not sure about how functional it is tough
> > 
> > [1] [GitHub - rightscale-cookbooks/yard-chef](https://github.com/rightscale/yard-chef)