mkdocs-document-dates¶

A new generation MkDocs plugin for displaying exact creation date, last updated date, authors, email of documents

Features¶

Always displays exact meta information of the document and works in any environment (no-Git, Git environments, Docker, all CI/CD build systems, etc.)
Support list display of recently updated documents (in descending order of update date)
Support for manually specifying date and author in Front Matter
Support for multiple date formats (date, datetime, timeago)
Support for multiple author modes (avatar, text, hidden)
Support for manually configuring author's name, link, avatar, email, etc.
Flexible display position (top or bottom)
Elegant styling (fully customizable)
Smart Tooltip Hover Tips
Multi-language support, localization support, intelligent recognition of user language, automatic adaptation
Cross-platform support (Windows, macOS, Linux)
Ultimate build efficiency: O(1), no need to set the env var !ENV to distinguish runs

Build Speed Comparison: 100 md: 1000 md: Time Complexity:

git-revision-date-localized

git-authors
＞ 3 s
＞ 30 s
O(n)

document-dates ＜ 0.1 s ＜ 0.15 s O(1)

Installation¶

pip install mkdocs-document-dates

Configuration¶

Just add the plugin to your mkdocs.yml:

plugins:
  - document-dates

Or, full configuration:

plugins:
  - document-dates:
      position: top            # Display position: top(after title) bottom(end of document), default: top
      type: date               # Date type: date datetime timeago, default: date
      exclude:                 # List of excluded files
        - temp.md                  # Example: exclude the specified file
        - blog/*                   # Example: exclude all files in blog folder, including subfolders
      date_format: '%Y-%m-%d'  # Date format strings (e.g., %Y-%m-%d, %b %d, %Y)
      time_format: '%H:%M:%S'  # Time format strings (valid only if type=datetime)
      show_created: true       # Show creation date: true false, default: true
      show_updated: true       # Show last updated date: true false, default: true
      show_author: true        # Show author: true(avatar) text(text) false(hidden), default: true

Specify Datetime¶

Priority¶

The plugin will automatically loads the exact date of the document in the following order

%%{init: {'theme': 'default', 'themeVariables': {'fontSize': '12px'}}}%%
flowchart LR
    A(1.Front Matter)
    B(2.Cache File)
    C(3.Git Timestamp)
    D(4.File Timestamp)
    A -.Creation date.-> B -.-> C -.-> D
    A -.Last updated.-> C

Creation dateLast updated

Prioritize reading the custom creation date in Front Matter
Then read the creation date in the cache file
Next read the document’s first git commit date as the creation date
Finally read the file’s creation time

Prioritize reading the custom last updated date in Front Matter
Then read the document’s last git commit date as the last updated date
Finally read the file’s modification time

Customization¶

This can be specified manually in Front Matter using the following fields

Creation date: created, date
Last updated: updated, modified

---
created: 2023-01-01
updated: 2025-02-23
---

Automatic cache creation date¶

The plugin automatically caches the creation date (no need to cache the last updated date), here's how it works:

1) In order to always get the original creation date of the document (earlier than the first git commit), a cache file is used to store the original creation date, located in the docs folder (hidden by default), please don't remove it:

docs/.dates_cache.jsonl, cache file
docs/.gitattributes, merge mechanism for cache file

2) The Git Hooks mechanism is used to automatically trigger the storing of the cache (on each git commit), and the cached file is automatically committed along with it, in addition, the installation of Git Hooks is automatically triggered when the plugin is installed, without any manual intervention

Make sure you run git commit from a terminal, not from integration tools like VSCode, which has bugs when integrating Git hooks

Fallback: If the cached file doesn't exist or automatic caching fails, the creation date will not be affected, it will proceed to priority 3 (read the first git commit date as the creation date)

Adaptive to any environment¶

The plugin can get the original exact date of the document in any environment, supports no-Git environments, Git environments, Docker, all CI/CD build systems, etc., here's how it works:

Adopt File Timestamp: Ensure that the original exact date can be obtained in a local no-Git environment
Adopt Git Timestamp: Ensure that the relatively accurate date can be obtained in a Git environment
Adopt Cache File: Ensure that the original absolutely exact date can be obtained in a Git environment
Front Matter: If you don't want to use automated dates, you can perform personalized customization in Front Matter

Specify Author¶

Priority¶

The plugin will automatically loads the author information of the document in the following order, and will automatically parse the email and then do the linking

%%{init: {'theme': 'default', 'themeVariables': {'fontSize': '12px'}}}%%
flowchart LR
    A(1.Front Matter)
    B(2.Git Author)
    C(3.site_author)
    D(4.PC Username)
    A -.-> B -.-> C -.-> D

Description

Prioritize reading custom authors in Front Matter
Then read the Git author
Next read the site_author in mkdocs.yml
Finally read the PC username

Customization¶

Can be configured in Front Matter in the following ways:

1) Configure a simple author: via field name

---
name: any-name
email: e-name@gmail.com
---

2) Configure one or more authors: via field authors

---
authors:
  - jaywhj
  - dawang
  - sunny
---

Enhanced author configuration¶

For a better user experience, you can add full configuration for all authors. To do so, create an authors.yml file in the docs/ folder using the format below:

docs/authors.yml

authors:
  jaywhj:
    name: Aaron Wang
    avatar: https://xxx.com/avatar.jpg
    url: https://jaywhj.netlify.app/
    email: junewhj@qq.com
    description: Minimalism
  user2:
    name: xxx
    avatar: assets/avatar.png
    url: https://xxx.com
    email: xxx@gmail.com
    description: xxx

When the author name in Front Matter, Git Author, site_author(mkdocs.yml) matches the key in authors, the full author information of the key will be automatically loaded

Git-Author aggregation¶

Git-Author support account aggregation, i.e. multiple different email accounts for the same person can be aggregated to show the same author, which can be configured by providing a .mailmap file in the repository root directory, see gitmailmap for more details

The following example aggregates a gmail account into a qq account and displays it uniformly as Aaron:

.mailmap

Aaron <junewhj@qq.com> <aaron@gmail.com>

Specify Avatar¶

Priority: The plugin will automatically loads the author avatar in the following order

%%{init: {'theme': 'default', 'themeVariables': {'fontSize': '12px'}}}%%
flowchart LR
    A(1.Front Matter)
    B(2.GitHub Avatar)
    C(3.Name-character Avatar)
    A -.-> B -.-> C

Customization:

Customizable via avatar field in Enhanced author configuration (supports URL paths and local file paths)

Others：

GitHub avatarName-character avatar

Parsing the repo_url property in mkdocs.yml for autoloading, no need to configure it separately

Automatically generated based on the author's name with the following rules:
1. Extract initials: English takes the combination of initials, other languages take the first character
2. Generate dynamic background color: Generate HSL color based on the hash of the name

Set Plugin Style¶

You can quickly set the plugin styles through preset entrances, such as icons, themes, colors, fonts, animations, dividing line and so on, you just need to find the file below and uncomment it:

Category:	Location:
Style & Theme	docs/assets/document_dates/user.config.css
Properties & Functions	docs/assets/document_dates/user.config.js

Add Localization Language¶

The plugin's tooltip and timeago have built-in multi-language support, and the locale is automatically detected, so you don't need to configure it manually. If any language is missing, you can add it for them:

tooltip

Built-in locales: en zh zh_TW es fr de ar ja ko ru nl pt

Addition Method (choose one):

In user.config.js, refer to Part 3 to add it by registering yourself
Submit a PR for Inclusion

timeago

When type: timeago is set, the timeago.js library is enabled for dynamic time rendering. The built-in locales in timeago.min.js only include en zh. If you need to load other languages, you can configure it as described below (choose one):

In user.config.js, refer to Part 2 to add it by registering yourself
In mkdocs.yml, configure the full version of timeago.full.min.js to reload all locales
```
extra_javascript:
  - assets/document_dates/core/timeago.full.min.js
```

Use Template Variables¶

You can access the meta-info of a document in a template using the following variables:

page.meta.document_dates_created
page.meta.document_dates_updated
page.meta.document_dates_authors
config.extra.recently_updated_docs

Usage examples:

Example 1: Set the correct lastmod for your site's sitemap.xml so that search engines can better handle SEO and thus increase your site's exposure (download sitemap.xml and override this path: docs/overrides/sitemap.xml)
Example 2: Using the template to re-customize the plugin, you have full control over the rendering logic and the plugin is only responsible for providing the data (download the template source-file.html and override this path: docs/overrides/partials/source-file.html, then freely customize the template code)

Add Recently Updated Module¶

You can get the recently updated document data (in descending order of update date) in any template via the variable config.extra.recently_updated_docs, then customize the rendering logic yourself

Or refer to the following example to use the preset template (List titles and links will be rendered automatically):

1) Configure the switch recently-updated in mkdocs.yml:

- document-dates:
    ...
    recently-updated:
      limit: 10        # Limit the number of docs displayed
      exclude:         # Exclude documents you don't want to show
        - index.md
        - blog/*

2) Download nav.html and override this path docs/overrides/partials/nav.html

Add to any location in any document¶

1) Configure the switch recently-updated in mkdocs.yml:

- document-dates:
    ...
    recently-updated:
      limit: 10        # Limit the number of docs displayed
      exclude:         # Exclude documents you don't want to show
        - index.md
        - blog/*

2) Insert this line anywhere in your document:

<!-- RECENTLY_UPDATED_DOCS -->

Preview¶

If you only want to use the "Recently Updated Module", you can also install the separate plugin mkdocs-recently-updated-docs

Other Tips¶

When running in Docker, you need to set the HOME environment variable first, because installing Git Hooks requires a writable user configuration directory. For example, add the following configuration to your docker-compose.yml:

environment:
  - HOME=/docs
working_dir: /docs
volumes:
  - ./mkdocs:/docs    # Mount the host's ./mkdocs to /docs in the container

Development Stories¶

A dispensable, insignificant little plug-in, friends who have time can take a look ^_^

Origin:
- Because git-revision-date-localized, a great project. When I used it at the end of 2024, I found that I couldn't use it locally because my mkdocs documentation was not included in git management, I don't understand why not read the file timestamp, but to use the git timestamp, and the file timestamp is exact, then raised an issue to the author, but didn't get a reply for about a week (the author had a reply later, nice guy, I guess he was busy at the time), and then I thought, there is nothing to do during the Chinese New Year, and now AI is so hot, why not with the help of the AI try it out for myself, it was born, born in February 2025
Iteration:
- After development, I understood why not use file timestamp, because files will be rebuilt when they go through git checkout or git clone, resulting in the loss of the original timestamp of the branch/file that was cloned or checked out. There are many solutions:
  - Method 1: Use the last git commit date as the last updated date and the first git commit date as the creation date, git-revision-date-localized does this. (This way, there will be a margin of error and dependency on git)
  - Method 2: Cache the original date in advance, and then read the cache subsequently (The date is exact and no dependency on any environment). The cache can be in Front Matter of the source document or in a separate file, I chose the latter. Storing in Front Matter makes sense and is easier, but this will modify the source content of the document, although it doesn't have any impact on the body, but I still want to ensure the originality of the data!
Difficulty:
1. When to read and store original date? This is just a plugin for mkdocs, with very limited access and permissions, mkdocs provides only build and serve, so in case a user commits directly without executing build or serve (e.g., when using a CI/CD build system), then you won't be able to retrieve the date of the file, not to mention caching it!
  - Straight to the bottom line: Git Hooks can be used to trigger custom scripts when specific git actions occur, such as every time a commit occurs
2. How to install Git Hooks automatically? When and how are they triggered? Installing packages from PyPI via pip doesn't have a standard post-install hook mechanism
  - Workaround: After analyzing the flow of pip installing packages from PyPI, I found that when compiling and installing through the source package (sdist), setuptools will be called to handle it, so we can find a way to implant the installation script in the process of setuptools, i.e., we can add a custom script in setup.py
3. How to design a cross-platform hook? To execute a python script, we need to explicitly specify the python interpreter, and the user's python environment varies depending on the operating system, the way python is installed, and the configuration, so how can we ensure that it works properly in all environments?
  - Solution: Don't try to determine the user's python environment in the hook, it's too late, you can do it before the hook is installed, and then dynamically set the hook's shebang line to set the correct python interpreter
4. How can I ensure that a single cache file does not conflict when collaborating with multi-person?
  - Workaround: use JSONL instead of JSON, and with the merge strategy merge=union
5. How to reduce build time when there are a lot of documents ( >200 )? Every time you fetch a git information, it's usually a file I/O operation, and if there are a lot of files, it can slow down the build considerably, which is intolerable for users (e.g., git-revision-date-localized can only improve the preview speed by adding the environment variable enabled: !ENV to disable itself locally, which is a bit like burying one's head in the sand)
  - Solution: Reduce the number of I/Os + Replace less efficient system functions
Improve:
- Since it's a newly developed plugin, it will be designed in the direction of excellent products, and the pursuit of the ultimate ease of use, simplicity, personalization, intelligence
  - Ease of use: no complex configuration, only 2-3 commonly used configuration items, in addition to providing the reference template for personalized configurations
  - Simplicity: no unnecessary configuration, no-Git dependencies, no CI/CD configuration dependencies, no other package dependencies
  - Personalization: fully customizable and full control over the rendering logic, the plugin is only responsible for providing the data
  - Intelligence: Intelligent parsing of document date, author, avatar, intelligent recognition of the user's language and automatic adaptation, in addition, there are auto-install Git Hooks, auto-cache, auto-commit
  - Compatibility: works well on older operating systems and browsers, such as WIN7, MacOS 10.11, iOS 12, Chrome 63.0.3239
The Last Secret 🤐:
- Programming is a hobby, and I'm a marketer of 8 years (Feel free to leave a comment)

mkdocs-document-dates¶

Features¶

Installation¶

Configuration¶

Specify Datetime¶

Priority¶

Customization¶

Automatic cache creation date¶

Adaptive to any environment¶

Specify Author¶

Priority¶

Customization¶

Enhanced author configuration¶

Git-Author aggregation¶

Specify Avatar¶

Set Plugin Style¶

Add Localization Language¶

Use Template Variables¶

Add Recently Updated Module¶

Add to sidebar navigation¶

Add to any location in any document¶

Preview¶

Other Tips¶

Development Stories¶

Comments Section¶

Build Speed Comparison:	100 md:	1000 md:	Time Complexity:
git-revision-date-localized git-authors	＞ 3 s	＞ 30 s	O(n)
document-dates	＜ 0.1 s	＜ 0.15 s	O(1)