Sidebar

The sidebar is the main navigation block for your documentation. You can configure the sidebar menu in themeConfig.sidebar.

export default {
  themeConfig: {
    sidebar: [
      {
        text: 'Guide',
        items: [
          { text: 'Introduction', link: '/introduction' },
          { text: 'Getting Started', link: '/getting-started' },
          ...
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
}

The Basics

The simplest form of the sidebar menu is passing in a single array of links. The first level item defines the "section" for the sidebar. It should contain text, which is the title of the section, and items which are the actual navigation links.

export default {
  themeConfig: {
    sidebar: [
      {
        text: 'Section Title A',
        items: [
          { text: 'Item A', link: '/item-a' },
          { text: 'Item B', link: '/item-b' },
          ...
        ]
      },
      {
        text: 'Section Title B',
        items: [
          { text: 'Item C', link: '/item-c' },
          { text: 'Item D', link: '/item-d' },
          ...
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
}

Each link should specify the path to the actual file starting with /. If you add trailing slash to the end of link, it will show index.md of the corresponding directory.

export default {
  themeConfig: {
    sidebar: [
      {
        text: 'Guide',
        items: [
          // This shows `/guide/index.md` page.
          { text: 'Introduction', link: '/guide/' }
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
}

You may further nest the sidebar items up to 6 level deep counting up from the root level. Note that deeper than 6 level of nested items gets ignored and will not be displayed on the sidebar.

export default {
  themeConfig: {
    sidebar: [
      {
        text: 'Level 1',
        items: [
          {
            text: 'Level 2',
            items: [
              {
                text: 'Level 3',
                items: [
                  ...
                ]
              }
            ]
          }
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
}

Multiple Sidebars

You may show different sidebar depending on the page path. For example, as shown on this site, you might want to create a separate sections of content in your documentation like "Guide" page and "Config" page.

To do so, first organize your pages into directories for each desired section:

.
├─ guide/
│  ├─ index.md
│  ├─ one.md
│  └─ two.md
└─ config/
   ├─ index.md
   ├─ three.md
   └─ four.md

Then, update your configuration to define your sidebar for each section. This time, you should pass an object instead of an array.

export default {
  themeConfig: {
    sidebar: {
      // This sidebar gets displayed when a user
      // is on `guide` directory.
      '/guide/': [
        {
          text: 'Guide',
          items: [
            { text: 'Index', link: '/guide/' },
            { text: 'One', link: '/guide/one' },
            { text: 'Two', link: '/guide/two' }
          ]
        }
      ],

      // This sidebar gets displayed when a user
      // is on `config` directory.
      '/config/': [
        {
          text: 'Config',
          items: [
            { text: 'Index', link: '/config/' },
            { text: 'Three', link: '/config/three' },
            { text: 'Four', link: '/config/four' }
          ]
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

Collapsible Sidebar Groups

By adding collapsed option to the sidebar group, it shows a toggle button to hide/show each section.

export default {
  themeConfig: {
    sidebar: [
      {
        text: 'Section Title A',
        collapsed: false,
        items: [...]
      }
    ]
  }
}

All sections are "open" by default. If you would like them to be "closed" on initial page load, set collapsed option to true.

export default {
  themeConfig: {
    sidebar: [
      {
        text: 'Section Title A',
        collapsed: true,
        items: [...]
      }
    ]
  }
}

useSidebar composable

Returns sidebar-related data. The returned object has the following type:

export interface DocSidebar {
  isOpen: Ref<boolean>
  sidebar: ComputedRef<DefaultTheme.SidebarItem[]>
  sidebarGroups: ComputedRef<DefaultTheme.SidebarItem[]>
  hasSidebar: ComputedRef<boolean>
  hasAside: ComputedRef<boolean>
  leftAside: ComputedRef<boolean>
  isSidebarEnabled: ComputedRef<boolean>
  open: () => void
  close: () => void
  toggle: () => void
}

Example:

<script setup>
import { useSidebar } from 'vitepress/theme'

const { hasSidebar } = useSidebar()
</script>

<template>
  <div v-if="hasSidebar">Only show when sidebar exists</div>
</template>