---
title: Turn Zero Docs
description: Learn what Turn Zero Docs (tzdocs) does, install it, and build a folder of Markdown into a documentation site an AI agent can read.
slug: /
order: 1
visibility: public
redirects_from: []
---

# Turn Zero Docs

Turn Zero Docs (tzdocs), run as the command `tzdocs`, converts a folder of Markdown files into a static documentation site. Each source file opens with front matter, a block containing the page's title and its optional navigation settings. The build writes a folder of HTML pages that share one stylesheet, with a navigation built from the source folders.

The tool is built for projects in which an AI coding agent writes the code and the documentation, and keeps the documentation current:

- **The output is deterministic.** The same source files, supplied files, build options, and tool version produce identical output bytes. You can review a generated change as a diff.
- **An agent reads the site without parsing its HTML.** Every build also writes four machine files. They are an index the agent reads first, a manifest of every page, a Markdown copy of each page beside its HTML, and one whole text of the [corpus](/concepts/glossary/#corpus). [Output](/reference/output/#machine-files) describes each file.
- **A check mode reports what is broken before anything builds.** It prints one [finding](/concepts/glossary/#finding) per line and exits nonzero if there is any finding, so it can run in a test suite, a hook, or an agent loop.
- **Code blocks are highlighted at build time.** The pages ship no highlighter script. The copy control at each block's right copies the block exactly as written.

## Start here

Install the published package, then check a folder named `docs` and build it into a folder named `site`.

```text
npm install -g tzdocs
tzdocs check --source docs
tzdocs build --source docs --out site
```

Build into a separate folder that contains nothing else you need. A successful build replaces everything in it, as [Output](/reference/output/#publication-and-recovery) describes. [Getting started](/getting-started/) covers the other install forms, every flag, and a first corpus.

## The served version

This manual describes tzdocs 0.8.0, the version the npm registry serves as `latest`. The manifest of this site gives the same version. Each change to the tool ships as a new version of the npm package `tzdocs`, as [Getting started](/getting-started/#install-it) describes.

## What it does not do

This version has no search, no version selection, no web server, and no scaffolding command. You change the appearance with a CSS file or an HTML shell. There is no theme system. Hosting, authentication, search, and version selection are left to the site that serves the generated files.

## Related

The [glossary](/concepts/glossary/) defines the words this manual uses. [What happens without asking](/concepts/what-happens-without-asking/) lists what the tool reads and writes on its own. [Refusals and findings](/reference/refusals/) lists every message the tool prints, with its cause and its remedy.

## Machine surfaces of this manual

This manual is published at `https://turnzero.ai/tzdocs/` with the four machine files the tool writes:

- The index is at `https://turnzero.ai/tzdocs/llms.txt`, with one line per page giving its title, address, and description.
- The whole text is at `https://turnzero.ai/tzdocs/llms-full.txt`.
- The manifest is at `https://turnzero.ai/tzdocs/docs.json`.
- The Markdown copy of each page is at the page's address followed by `index.md`.

These pages and files are open to every visitor and to search engines, with no sign-in. A tool connected to Turn Zero Cloud can also read the index as the resource `docs://tzdocs/llms.txt` and the whole text as `docs://tzdocs/llms-full.txt`, or through the `read_documentation` action.