Quick start

This quick start creates a DocInsight project that combines a Markdown guide with API reference generated from one or more existing Delphi projects. Follow it to check the project, build the HTML site, and open the site in your browser. If you have not installed DocInsight yet, see Install DocInsight.

If you already have a legacy .diproj manifest, skip the template workflow and migrate the existing project.

Create a documentation project

Open a terminal in the repository root that contains your Delphi projects, then run:

shell 
docinsight init --template delphi

The initializer guides you through three settings:

  1. Enter the path to an existing .groupproj, .dproj, .dpr, or .dpk file, relative to the repository root, such as Packages/MyLibrary.dproj.

  2. Select the Delphi compiler version used by the project, such as delphi_13.

  3. Select the target platform to analyze, such as Win32.

DocInsight derives the project name and title from the current directory name. Pass --name and --title to set them explicitly:

shell 
docinsight init --template delphi --name my-library --title "My Library"

The examples below assume the project root folder is named my-library, with Packages/MyLibrary.dproj selected for Delphi 13 and Win32.

The delphi template creates docinsight.json and a starter Markdown guide alongside the existing Delphi project:

text 
my-library/
|-- docinsight.json
|-- docs/
|   |-- overview.md
|   `-- toc.md
`-- Packages/
    `-- MyLibrary.dproj

The generated manifest defines a Delphi source, Markdown guide content, Delphi API content, and an HTML output target that contains both:

json 
{
  "edition": "2026",
  "project": {
    "name": "my-library",
    "title": "My Library"
  },
  "sources": {
    "main": {
      "type": "delphi",
      "files": ["Packages/MyLibrary.dproj"],
      "options": {
        "compiler": "delphi_13",
        "platform": "Win32"
      }
    }
  },
  "content": {
    "docs": {
      "title": "Guide",
      "type": "markdown",
      "root": "docs",
      "mount": "/"
    },
    "api": {
      "title": "API Reference",
      "type": "delphi",
      "source": "main"
    }
  },
  "output": {
    "default_targets": ["site"],
    "targets": {
      "site": {
        "type": "html",
        "path": "dist/docs/site",
        "content": ["docs", "api"]
      }
    }
  }
}

The generated docs/overview.md is the first guide topic. The generated docs/toc.md makes it the default topic and places it in the navigation. Edit these files as the guide grows.

Create a Markdown-only project

If you only need Markdown documentation, use the markdown template instead:

shell 
docinsight init --template markdown

Migrate a legacy project

Import an existing .diproj manifest instead of selecting a template:

shell 
docinsight init --from-legacy MyLibrary.diproj

DocInsight converts the legacy configuration to docinsight.json and creates starter Markdown guide files when needed.

Check the documentation project

Run docinsight check before building or publishing:

shell 
docinsight check

The check command validates the project manifest, configured content, and source files without writing generated output. It analyzes the selected Delphi source and reports documentation problems it finds there.

If the command exits successfully, the project passed validation. Depending on the configured content and verbosity, a clean project may produce little or no output.

Build and open the site

Build the default output target:

console 
$ docinsight build

Building MyLibrary...

✓ Built   site  dist/docs/site  103 pages

Built MyLibrary in 0.1s.
1 target built; 0 errors, 0 warnings.

The generated site is written to dist/docs/site and includes both the Markdown guide and Delphi API reference.

Open the generated site in your default browser:

shell 
docinsight open

Next steps