Incremental Updates

After your initial documentation is generated, use kodadocs update to efficiently update only the parts that changed. This is much faster than regenerating everything from scratch.

How It Works

1. Re-discovers routes — scans your project for current routes
2. Computes diff — compares against the previous route snapshot
3. Selective capture — only re-captures screenshots for new or changed routes
4. Selective annotation — only re-annotates affected screenshots
5. Incremental enrichment — only regenerates articles for affected routes
6. Full rebuild — rebuilds the VitePress site (this is always fast)

Usage

# Basic update
kodadocs update .

# Force re-capture specific routes
kodadocs update . --routes /dashboard,/settings,/profile

# Update with a different app URL
kodadocs update . --url http://localhost:8080

# Update and deploy
kodadocs update . --deploy

What Triggers Updates

The diff engine detects three categories of changes:

• Added routes — new pages that didn't exist before → captured and documented
• Removed routes — pages that no longer exist → pruned from screenshots and articles
• Changed routes — forced via --routes flag → re-captured and re-documented

Route Pruning

When routes are removed:

• Screenshots for those routes are cleaned up
• Articles that only reference removed routes are removed
• The sidebar navigation is updated automatically

Requirements

Incremental updates require an existing manifest (.kodadocs/run_manifest.json). If no manifest exists, you'll be prompted to run kodadocs generate first.

When to Use Full Regeneration

Some changes warrant a full generate --fresh instead of update:

• Major framework migration (e.g., Pages Router → App Router)
• Significant UI redesign
• Changed authentication method
• Updated brand colors or theme