Deployment

MDDocs is a traditional PHP application. It does not require a Node.js build, a database, or a worker process.

Production checklist

• run composer install --no-dev --optimize-autoloader
• point the web server document root to public/
• block public access to app/, docs/, config/, var/, and vendor/
• make var/ writable by the PHP process
• set MCP_BEARER_TOKEN if the HTTP MCP endpoint is available
• decide whether to use local or github storage
• back up documentation regularly or version docs/ in Git

Apache

public/.htaccess contains rewrite rules for clean URLs. Set the document root to:

public/

HestiaCP Nginx

For HestiaCP servers running standalone Nginx + PHP-FPM, MDDocs includes ready-to-copy templates:

deploy/hestiacp/nginx/php-fpm/mddocs.tpl
deploy/hestiacp/nginx/php-fpm/mddocs.stpl

Set the Hestia custom document root to the MDDocs public/ directory:

/home/<user>/web/<domain>/public_html/public

The project itself should live directly in:

/home/<user>/web/<domain>/public_html/

Install MDDocs with one of these methods.

Direct install from GitHub

cd /home/<user>/web/<domain>/public_html
git clone https://github.com/devioarts/mddocs.git .
composer install --no-dev --optimize-autoloader
composer build-search

Local upload

Prepare the project locally:

composer install --no-dev --optimize-autoloader
composer build-search

Upload the project contents to:

/home/<user>/web/<domain>/public_html/

Include vendor/ when Composer will not be run on the server. Do not upload .git/, .idea/, var/server.log, or var/server.pid.

After upload:

cd /home/<user>/web/<domain>/public_html
chown -R <user>:<user> var
chmod -R ug+rw var

Install the templates on Ubuntu/HestiaCP:

cp deploy/hestiacp/nginx/php-fpm/mddocs.tpl /usr/local/hestia/data/templates/web/nginx/php-fpm/mddocs.tpl
cp deploy/hestiacp/nginx/php-fpm/mddocs.stpl /usr/local/hestia/data/templates/web/nginx/php-fpm/mddocs.stpl

Then set the custom document root in HestiaCP, select the mddocs Nginx template for the domain, or use:

v-change-web-domain-tpl <user> <domain> mddocs
v-rebuild-web-domain <user> <domain>

See deploy/hestiacp/README.md in the repository for the complete HestiaCP guide.

Nginx

The basic principle is to route missing files to index.php:

location / {
    try_files $uri /index.php$is_args$args;
}

PHP-FPM configuration depends on the host, but the document root should remain public/.

Shared hosting

If the host cannot set the document root to public/, prefer a host that can. Exposing the whole project root publicly may reveal configuration, runtime files, or vendor packages.

Cache and rebuilds

Search indexes are stored in var/cache/. After larger content changes, run:

composer build-search