mkdocs-document-dates¶

A new generation MkDocs plugin for displaying exact creation time, last update time, authors, email of documents

Features¶

Always display exact meta-info of the document for any environment (no-Git, Git, all CI/CD build systems, etc.)
Support for manually specifying time and author in Front Matter
Support for multiple time formats (date, datetime, timeago)
Support for multiple author modes (avatar, text, hidden)
Flexible display position (top or bottom)
Elegant styling (fully customizable)
Smart Tooltip Hover Tips
Supports display of recently updated documents in an overall list
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 env vars to distinguish runs

PK of Build Efficiency: 100 md: 1000 md: Time Complexity:

git-revision-date-localized > 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)
      type: date               # Date type: date datetime timeago, default: date
      exclude:                 # List of excluded files
        - temp.md              # Exclude specific file
        - drafts/*             # Exclude all files in drafts 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_author: true        # Author display mode: true(avatar) text(text) false(hidden)
      recently-updated: true   # Whether to turn on recently updated data, default: false

Specify Datetime¶

Priority: The plugin will automatically get the exact time information of the document in the following order, and will automatically cache the creation time

Front Matter > File System Timestamps(Cached) > Git Timestamps

Customization: can be specified manually in Front Matter using the following fields

Creation time: created, date, creation
Last updated: modified, updated, last_modified, last_updated

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

---

Specify Author¶

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

Front Matter > Git Author > site_author(mkdocs.yml) > PC Username

Customization: can be configured in Front Matter with the field name

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

---

Specify Avatar¶

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

Front Matter > GitHub Avatar > Character Avatar

GitHub avatarCharacter avatar

Will be automatically loaded by parsing the repo_url property in mkdocs.yml

Will be 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

Customization: can be customized in Front Matter by customizing the author's avatar field

---
# Way 1: Configure a full author (fields optional)
author:
    name: jay
    email: jay@qq.com
    avatar: https://xxx.author-avatar-URL.com/xxx.png
    url: https://xxx.website-URL.com/xxx
    description: author description

# Way 2: Configure multiple authors
authors:
    - jaywhj
    - dawang
    - sunny

---

Tip: If you want to configure complete information for multiple authors, you can create a separate configuration file authors.yml in the docs/ folder, see the authors.yml for its format

Set Plugin Style¶

Plugin styles such as icons, themes, colors, fonts, animations, dividing line, etc. can be quickly set through the pre-set portals, 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¶

More localization languages can be added for timeago and tooltip:

Already built-in languages en zh zh_TW es fr de ar ja ko ru nl pt, no need to manually configure, intelligent recognition, automatic switching

If there is any missing language or inaccurate built-in language, you can refer to Part 3 in user.config.js to add it by registering yourself, or submit PR for built-in

The original configuration item locale has been retained, but manual configuration is no longer recommended

timeago¶

When type: timeago is set, timeago.js is enabled to render dynamic time, timeago.min.js only contains English and Chinese by default, if need to load other languages, you can configure it as below (choose one):

In user.config.js, refer to Part 2, add it by registering yourself
In mkdocs.yml, configure the full version of timeago.full.min.js to reload all languages at once
```
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_modified
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 source-file.html and override this path: docs/overrides/partials/source-file.html)

Add Recently Updated Module¶

You can get the recently updated document data use config.extra.recently_updated_docs in any template, then customize the rendering logic yourself, or use the preset template examples directly:

Example 1: Add the recently updated module to the navigation of the sidebar. First configure the switch recently-updated: true, then download nav.html and override this path docs/overrides/partials/nav.html :
```
- document-dates:
    ...
    recently-updated: true
```
Example 2: Add this feature anywhere in any md document. You can install the plugin mkdocs-recently-updated-docs, which is also based on the data capabilities provided by this plugin and provides more template examples, making it easier to use

Other Tips¶

Creation time¶

In order to always get the exact creation time, a separate cache file is used to store the creation time of the document, 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

Tip: 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!

Last updated time¶

Reads the filesystem timestamp, not the time of the last git commit, which has nothing to do with git and nothing to do with cached files.

Note: Git's git checkout or git clone behavior rebuilds files, resulting in the loss of the original timestamps of the cloned or checked out branches/files, if this is the case for you (cloning or checking out the documents from repositories), you can configure a restore script in your CI/CD process, for example GitHub Actions can use this tool git-restore-mtime-action to restore the document's timestamp.

Development Stories¶

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

Origin:
- Because mkdocs-git-revision-date-localized-plugin, 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 system time, but to use the git time, and the filesystem time 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 filesystem time, because files will be rebuilt when they go through git checkout or clone, resulting in the loss of original timestamp information. There are many solutions:
- Method 1: Use the last git commit time as the last update time and the first git commit time as the creation time, mkdocs-git-revision-date-localized-plugin does this. (This way, there will be a margin of error and dependency on git)
- Method 2: Cache the original time in advance, and then read the cache subsequently (The time 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 time? 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 time information 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: I considered using a shell script, but since I'd have to call back to python eventually, it's easier to use a python script. We can detect the user's python environment when 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 (JSON Lines) instead of JSON, and with the merge strategy merge=union
5. How to reduce build time when there are a lot of documents ( >1000 )? Getting git information about a document is usually a file I/O operation, and if there are a lot of files, the efficiency of the operation will plummet. 1,000 documents can be expected to take more than 30 seconds, which is intolerable to the user
  - Solution: Reduce the number of I/Os + Use caching + 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 time, 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)

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