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Docs theme

New release

October 1, 2026 • 2 min of reading
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Cecil
Static site generator
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Jane Doe
Contributor

A new version of the Docs theme is available! It brings a better navigation, a search that works without any external service, and many accessibility and maintainability improvements. Here is a tour of what's new.

Collapsible navigation

Each sub-section of the documentation is now a collapsible group in the sidebar. Groups are open by default, and the group of the current page is always expanded. To collapse a group, add collapsed: true to the front matter of its index.md file:

---
title: Advanced
weight: 3
collapsed: true
---

Or collapse all of them at once, in the configuration:

sidebar:
  collapsed: true

Section pages also got their own template: they now display the sidebar, cards linking to their sub-pages, and the previous/next navigation.

Search without a service

Algolia DocSearch is still supported (with the DocSearch component theme), but you can now use the FlexSearch component theme instead: the search index is generated at build time, and the search runs entirely in the browser.

theme:
  - docs
  - flexsearch

Small things that matter

Some changes are less visible, but make the daily use of the theme more pleasant:

Feature Description
Copy button Every code block can be copied to the clipboard in one click
Last updated date Set the updated front matter variable to display it
Mermaid on demand The library is loaded only on pages containing a diagram
Theme-aware diagrams Mermaid diagrams are re-rendered when switching the color mode
Custom 404 page With links to the home page, the documentation and the search

Accessibility

We also went through the theme with keyboard and screen reader users in mind:

  1. A "Skip to content" link is the first focusable element of each page.
  2. The mobile menu can be closed with the Escape key, and the focus is moved accordingly.
  3. Current pages are announced with aria-current, and the breadcrumb is a proper navigation landmark.
  4. Contrast has been improved in dark mode.

Upgrading

Update the theme with Composer, then rebuild your website:

composer update cecil/theme-docs
php cecil.phar build

Thanks to everyone who reported issues and suggested improvements. Your feedback shapes the next releases, so keep it coming!