Glossary
Every Reed term in a sentence or two, each linked to the page that defines it.
A quick reference for the terms used across this site. For how the pieces fit together, see Concepts.
Analytics registry
Section titled “Analytics registry”The fixed list of providers analytics accepts: ga4, plausible, posthog, fathom,
umami and matomo. You configure a provider by value, never by pasting a script. See
Analytics.
ApiRef
Section titled “ApiRef”A navigation entry of the shape { "label": "...", "api": true, "spec": "..." } that
generates endpoint pages from one OpenAPI spec. It must be the only page in its group, and
that group the only group in its tab. See navigation.
Atomic output
Section titled “Atomic output”How reed build writes --out: through a staged replacement, so the directory is never a
mix of old and new files, even when a build fails partway. See
Build output.
The path your site is mounted under, such as /docs. Reed prefixes links it emits from
docs.json. In page prose you write the prefix yourself. See
site and base.
Capability identity
Section titled “Capability identity”The one name Reed derives for each API operation, such as coupons.redeem, shared by the
MCP server and the Skill pack. capabilityIdentity.<spec>.methodOverrides renames them.
See API and generation.
Cascade
Section titled “Cascade”The four layers Reed’s stylesheet is assembled from, lowest to highest: L0 token contract,
L1 template baseline, L2 generated tokens, L3 customCss. See
Colors and the CSS cascade.
Catalog
Section titled “Catalog”The fixed set of 37 components available in every page with no import. A name outside
it is DS-S06. See Using components.
Compile pipeline
Section titled “Compile pipeline”The fixed sequence every build runs: schema parse, template resolution, diagnostics,
Astro and Starlight synthesis, atomic output. check runs the first three. See
Concepts.
Concepts (Skill)
Section titled “Concepts (Skill)”skill.<spec>.concepts: page references bundled verbatim into a Skill pack, so your prose
travels with the tools. An unresolvable reference fails the run. See
Agent Skill generation.
Content directory
Section titled “Content directory”The directory of .mdx pages, <dir>/content by default. A file’s path determines its
page id. See Project anatomy.
Contract
Section titled “Contract”The rules a component is judged against: allowed children, required props, allowed enum values. Every diagnostic names the contract it applied. See Diagnostics.
Corepack
Section titled “Corepack”Node’s package-manager shim, which Reed uses to run its pinned pnpm. Node 25 and newer
no longer bundle it, so prefetch and build need it enabled. See
Offline builds in CI.
customCss
Section titled “customCss”Your own stylesheets, listed in docs.json and applied as the highest cascade layer.
The supported way to override a --reed-* token. See
Logo, favicon and custom CSS.
Derived surface
Section titled “Derived surface”Anything Reed emits besides the HTML site: llms.txt, markdown mirrors, an MCP server,
a Skill pack. All come from one intermediate representation. See
One source, every surface.
Dialect
Section titled “Dialect”content.dialect: which platform’s MDX conventions your content follows, reed, fern
or mintlify. It changes how markup is read. It does not convert files. See
Content dialect.
Diagnostic
Section titled “Diagnostic”A problem report with a code and a severity. Errors fail check and build. Warnings do
not, unless a strict flag escalates them. See Diagnostics.
Doc IR
Section titled “Doc IR”The single intermediate representation every derived surface is emitted from: a per-page document plus an OpenAPI-derived capability layer. See One source, every surface.
docs.json
Section titled “docs.json”The single configuration file for a Reed project. It is validated by a strict schema, so an unknown key is an error. See Project anatomy.
docs.schema.json
Section titled “docs.schema.json”A self-contained copy of Reed’s JSON Schema, written next to docs.json by init and
import for editor completion. Commit it. See Project anatomy.
Accessibility diagnostics: missing alt, an H1 in the body or a skipped heading level,
an icon-only link with no label. Always errors. See
Diagnostics.
Design and density diagnostics, such as too many components on a page or a dropped prop.
Warnings, escalated by --strict-components. See
Diagnostics.
Structure diagnostics: disallowed children, missing required props, bad enum values, unknown components, nesting too deep. Always errors. See Diagnostics.
Fern importer
Section titled “Fern importer”reed import --from fern: converts a Fern project’s docs.yml and content into a
docs.json and a content tree. A first pass, not a finished migration. See
Migrating from Fern.
Frontmatter
Section titled “Frontmatter”The YAML block at the top of a page. title becomes the H1 and description feeds meta
tags, llms.txt and structured data. See Pages.
Frontmatter slug
Section titled “Frontmatter slug”A frontmatter field that sets a page’s id outright, whatever its file path. See Navigation.
Generated API page
Section titled “Generated API page”An endpoint page Reed synthesizes from an OpenAPI spec, one per operation. No MDX file exists for it. See OpenAPI specs.
A labeled list of pages inside a tab. Groups can nest up to five levels, and an empty group is a schema error. See Navigation.
_headers
Section titled “_headers”The response-header rules Reed writes into every build, so hosts serve .md as markdown
and llms.txt as text. It belongs at the root of the served tree. See
Response headers.
head injection
Section titled “head injection”head.meta and head.link: data-only tags added to every page’s <head>. There is no
script, style or raw field, by design. See head injection.
jsonLd
Section titled “jsonLd”JSON-LD objects you write in docs.json, copied verbatim onto every page. Independent of
structuredData. See Structured data.
llms.txt
Section titled “llms.txt”One plain-text file listing every page with its title, URL and description, written by
every reed build. See llms.txt and markdown mirrors.
Markdown mirror
Section titled “Markdown mirror”The .md copy of every page, emitted at the page’s own path. build writes them, and
dev serves them. See llms.txt and markdown mirrors.
MCP descriptor
Section titled “MCP descriptor”The tool definition generated for each API operation: a name from its capability identity,
a description and an input schema. reed mcp generate writes them as server source. See
MCP server generation.
Offline guarantee
Section titled “Offline guarantee”After one reed prefetch, dev and build run with no network. check never needs it.
It covers the platform, architecture and libc prefetch ran on. See
Offline builds in CI.
OpenAPI spec key
Section titled “OpenAPI spec key”A name under api.specs, such as ingestion. Navigation, mcp, skill and
capabilityIdentity refer to specs by this key. Keys must be unique case-insensitively.
See OpenAPI specs.
Orphan file
Section titled “Orphan file”A content file that no navigation entry references. reed check reports it as
content-page-not-in-navigation, an error. There are no hidden pages. See
Concepts.
Page id
Section titled “Page id”The identifier Reed derives from a page’s file path, and the string you write in
navigation. content/Guide/Intro.mdx is guide/intro. See
Navigation.
PageRef
Section titled “PageRef”A navigation entry that is a bare string naming a page id. One that resolves to no file is an error. See navigation.
Prefetch
Section titled “Prefetch”reed prefetch: the only command that touches the network. It fills the dependency store
and the Corepack cache once per machine. See reed prefetch.
.reed/
Section titled “.reed/”The working directory Reed creates in your project root for build files and caches. Gitignore it. Deleting it only slows the next build. See Project anatomy.
Redirect
Section titled “Redirect”An entry in redirects. reed build writes it as a line in _redirects, which
Cloudflare serves as a real 301 or 302, and as an HTML page with a meta refresh, the
fallback on other hosts. See Redirects.
Reserved fields
Section titled “Reserved fields”versions, languages and products: accepted by the schema and ignored. They survive
the unknown-key check and do nothing. See Roadmap.
Scaffold
Section titled “Scaffold”The starter project reed init writes: docs.json, example pages and
docs.schema.json. --template mint scaffolds a full taxonomy. The others scaffold a
two-page stub. See reed init.
The absolute origin your site is served from. Setting it enables the sitemap, robots.txt,
canonical URLs and absolute URLs in llms.txt. See site and base.
Skill pack
Section titled “Skill pack”A SKILL.md and supporting files generated from an OpenAPI spec by reed skill generate,
written into your repository. See Agent Skill generation.
Snippets
Section titled “Snippets”HTTP request examples generated from your spec in up to five languages. Author-written
x-codeSamples always win. See Code snippets.
Stage directory
Section titled “Stage directory”The tree you actually serve when a site sets base: the mount directory holding the
contents of dist/, with _headers at the root. See Deploy.
The pinned dependency store reed prefetch fills, at REED_STORE_DIR, by default
~/.reed/pnpm-store. Machine-wide, shared by every project. See
Environment variables.
--strict-components
Section titled “--strict-components”Escalates DS-D* warnings to errors on check and build. dev does not honor it. See
Diagnostics.
--strict-tokens
Section titled “--strict-tokens”Escalates every warning that is not DS-D* to an error on check and build. Combine it
with --strict-components to fail on everything. On dev it only changes how warnings are
printed; dev refuses to start on real errors alone. See Diagnostics.
structuredData
Section titled “structuredData”The switch for the JSON-LD Reed derives per page: an article object plus a
BreadcrumbList. On by default. See Structured data.
The top level of navigation. Each tab holds at least one group. See Navigation.
Template
Section titled “Template”The visual design a site renders through: mint, rapide or black. The component
catalog is the same under all three. See Templates.
Template baseline
Section titled “Template baseline”A template’s own stylesheet, with its own value for every dimension. A field you omit leaves the baseline in control. See Templates.
Time limits
Section titled “Time limits”REED_BUILD_TIMEOUT_MS (30 minutes) and REED_INSTALL_TIMEOUT_MS (15 minutes) turn a
hung build or install into an error. 0 removes a ceiling. See
Environment variables.
A design value from docs.json, such as a color, that becomes a CSS custom property in
the L2 layer. A template that cannot honor a token warns and ignores it. See
Colors and the CSS cascade.
type: changelog
Section titled “type: changelog”Frontmatter that lays a page out from its date-shaped ## headings and emits it as an
Article. An invalid date is a diagnostic. See Expandable, Icon, Tooltip, Update.
unsupported-upstream-component
Section titled “unsupported-upstream-component”An error, not a DS-* code: a page uses a component with no equivalent under the
configured dialect. See Diagnostics.