[Docs] Render the guides with Zensical instead of phpDocumentor by chr-hertel · Pull Request #414 · modelcontextprotocol/php-sdk

chr-hertel · 2026-08-10T23:09:29Z

POC: render the guides with Zensical instead of phpDocumentor, matching the Python SDK docs.

⚠️Needs a repo setting: Pages source must change from a branch to "GitHub Actions" — merge first, then flip and re-run, so the live site never goes dark.
Zensical resolves internal links and fails the build on a dead one; phpDocumentor stays for the API reference at /api/.
Deploys on every push to main, PRs build without deploying; make docs and make docs-serve locally.
Same theme config as the Python SDK, no custom CSS; PHP highlighting fixed (Pygments needs startinline for fragments).
Ten flat pages become six sections, one topic per page; per-page ToCs dropped, GitHub callouts became admonitions.
Accuracy sweep against src/: fixed nine samples that could not run, ~13 wrong claims, and 16 broken examples/ paths.

Copilot

Pull request overview

This PR migrates the project’s guide documentation build from phpDocumentor guides to Zensical/MkDocs Material (matching the Python SDK docs), while keeping phpDocumentor for the generated API reference mounted at /api/. It also updates the build/deploy pipeline to publish the combined site via GitHub Pages (Actions-based deployment).

Changes:

Add MkDocs/Zensical configuration and reorganize guide content under docs/ into a sectioned navigation.
Update make docs to build Zensical guides + phpDocumentor API docs and merge them into a single site/ output.
Replace the previous gh-pages branch deployment with the official GitHub Pages Actions workflow and update external doc links.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 51 out of 54 changed files in this pull request and generated no comments.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
src/Server/Transport/Http/OAuth/ProtectedResourceMetadataHandler.php	Update docs reference path for authorization guide.
requirements-docs.txt	Add pinned Zensical dependency for docs toolchain.
README.md	Point documentation links to the published docs site URLs.
phpdoc.dist.xml	Configure phpDocumentor to output API docs only under `.phpdoc/build/api`.
mkdocs.yml	Add MkDocs/Zensical site configuration, theme, nav, and markdown extensions.
Makefile	Split docs build into guides (Zensical) + API (phpDocumentor) and add `docs-serve`.
examples/client/http_discovery_calculator.php	Update server startup path/port in usage comment.
docs/servers/tools.md	New “Tools” guide page for server-side tooling.
docs/servers/schemas.md	New schema generation/validation guide page.
docs/servers/resources.md	New “Resources” guide page.
docs/servers/resource-templates.md	New “Resource templates” guide page.
docs/servers/registration.md	New “Registering elements” guide page.
docs/servers/prompts.md	New “Prompts” guide page.
docs/servers/index.md	New “Servers” section index page.
docs/servers/completions.md	New completion providers guide page.
docs/server-builder.md	Remove legacy top-level server builder guide (moved under `docs/run/`).
docs/run/stdio.md	New STDIO transport guide page.
docs/run/sessions.md	New sessions guide page.
docs/run/server-builder.md	New server builder guide page under “Running your server”.
docs/run/index.md	New “Running your server” section index page.
docs/run/http.md	Refocus HTTP transport doc and convert callouts to admonitions.
docs/run/framework-integration.md	New framework integration guide page.
docs/run/authorization.md	Update authorization docs for new structure and middleware/meta behavior.
docs/mcp-elements.md	Remove legacy monolithic “MCP Elements” guide (split into section pages).
docs/index.md	Replace legacy docs landing page with new MkDocs site homepage.
docs/handlers/logging.md	New handler logging guide page.
docs/handlers/index.md	New “Inside your handler” section index page.
docs/handlers/client-communication.md	Rename/rework handler client-communication guide.
docs/get-started/installation.md	New installation guide page.
docs/get-started/inspector.md	New Inspector walkthrough guide page.
docs/get-started/index.md	New “Get started” section index page.
docs/get-started/first-server.md	New “First server” tutorial page.
docs/favicon.svg	Add docs site favicon asset.
docs/examples.md	Update examples guide paths and admonition style.
docs/CNAME	Add CNAME for GitHub Pages custom domain.
docs/client/transports.md	New client transports guide page.
docs/client/server-requests.md	New client server-initiated requests guide page.
docs/client/index.md	New “Clients” section index page.
docs/client/errors.md	New client error handling guide page.
docs/client/connecting.md	New client connecting guide page (includes `setMaxRetries()` no-op note).
docs/client/capabilities.md	New client capabilities guide page.
docs/client.md	Remove legacy monolithic client guide (replaced by section pages).
docs/advanced/index.md	New “Advanced” section index page.
docs/advanced/extensions.md	Update extensions doc link to GitHub-hosted example.
docs/advanced/events.md	Update events doc content/callouts.
docs/advanced/custom-handlers.md	New custom message handlers guide page.
docs/.overrides/.icons/mcp.svg	Add custom icon override asset for the docs theme.
adr/0001-oauth-authorization-server-out-of-scope.md	Update ADR link to new authorization doc location.
.phpdoc/template/components/header-title.html.twig	Point phpDocumentor header link back to site root.
.phpdoc/template/base.html.twig	Point phpDocumentor “Guides” menu entry back to site root.
.gitignore	Ignore built docs output (`site/`) and cache directory.
.github/workflows/docs.yml	Replace gh-pages branch publishing with official GitHub Pages Actions deployment.
.gitattributes	Exclude MkDocs/Zensical config files from export archives.

Suppressed comments (1)

docs/run/authorization.md:96

The Quick Start snippet instantiates OAuthRequestMetaMiddleware() without importing it, so the example won’t run as-is when copied. Either add a use Mcp\Server\Transport\Http\Middleware\OAuthRequestMetaMiddleware; import or fully-qualify the class here.

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phpDocumentor's guide renderer copies the markdown through mostly verbatim: relative links between pages keep pointing at `*.md` targets that do not exist in the built site, and nothing validates them, so the published guides are full of dead links. Zensical (the Material for MkDocs team's successor to MkDocs) resolves internal links against the page tree and fails the build on a broken one. `zensical build --strict` already found four dead links on the first run — three repo-relative links escaping docs/ (fixed to point at GitHub) and one wrong in-page anchor. phpDocumentor stays on for the class-level API reference only; `make docs` builds the guides into site/ and mounts the reference at site/api/, so its two header links back to the guides now target the site root. Deployment moves from pushing a gh-pages branch to the official GitHub Pages actions, and from release-only to every push on main, with pull requests building (but not deploying) so a broken link fails review instead of the site. NOTE: this needs the repository's Pages source switched to "GitHub Actions" (Settings -> Pages) once.

The docs site now uses the same theme configuration as https://py.sdk.modelcontextprotocol.io/ so the language SDKs read as one set of docs: the MCP mark as logo and favicon, Inter/JetBrains Mono, the black/slate palette with a three-way (system/light/dark) toggle, instant navigation, code copy/annotate, and a right-hand table of contents. The markdown extension set is widened to the same list (tabbed blocks, task lists, footnotes, emoji/icons, mermaid fences), which the content restructure builds on. Styling is otherwise stock: no custom stylesheet, and Zensical's own `modern` theme variant, pinned explicitly rather than left to the default. The one departure is code highlighting, which is broken out of the box here: Pygments only highlights PHP after a `<?php` tag, so the guides — whose code blocks are almost all fragments — rendered as flat plain text. The `php` lexer is extended with `startinline`, and complete-file blocks use a `php-file` lexer that keeps the literal open tag highlighted.

The guides were ten flat pages, each opening with a hand-maintained table of contents and each mixing several audiences: `mcp-elements.md` covered tools, prompts, schema generation and handler-side logging, `transports.md` covered both transports plus framework integration, and `server-builder.md` covered configuration, sessions and custom message handlers. They are now split along the same lines as the Python SDK's documentation (https://py.sdk.modelcontextprotocol.io/), one topic per page: Get started installation, first server, the Inspector Servers tools, resources, resource templates, prompts, completions, schema generation, registration Inside your handler the ClientGateway, logging Running your server builder, STDIO, HTTP, framework integration, sessions, authorization Clients connecting, transports, capabilities, server-initiated requests, error handling Advanced events, protocol extensions, custom message handlers Prose is carried over as-is apart from the seams; what is new is the landing page and one index page per section, which say what the section is for and where to go next, so no page is a dead end. The per-page "Table of Contents" lists are gone — the theme renders one from the headings — and GitHub's `> [!IMPORTANT]` blockquotes became admonitions, which Zensical renders as callouts rather than plain quotes. Every code sample and factual claim was then checked against src/ and the runnable examples, which turned up long-standing errors in the carried-over prose. Samples that could not run: a prompt using a `system` role (MCP has only user/assistant), `Mcp\Schema\PromptMessage` (it is under `Schema\Content`) constructed with an array instead of a single content object, `Mcp\Capability\Prompt\Completion\ProviderInterface` (it is `Mcp\Capability\Completion\ProviderInterface`), `new EmbeddedResource(type:, resource: [...])` (neither parameter exists), a `: resource` return type (not a PHP type), `#[McpResource]` with a `{path}` variable (that is a template), a stray quote in the builder example, a `middlewares:` argument (it is `middleware:`), and `getRequest()->getAttribute()` in the OAuth guide (no such method — the values arrive on the request meta). Claims corrected: sampling's `system_prompt` option (it is `systemPrompt`), `SampleMessage` (it is `SamplingMessage`), `Notification` called an interface (abstract class), "parameter order matters" for URI templates (bound by name), full RFC 6570 support (only simple `{var}`), the tool description fallback chain, `void` returning empty content, a non-zero STDIO exit code, `ErrorEvent` being null for parse errors, handlers being "prepended", `Psr16StoreSession`, and PSR-3 log context being sent to the client (it is dropped). Sixteen `examples/` paths were missing their `server/` segment. README, the OAuth ADR and one source comment now point at the published site instead of at markdown files that moved.

The `paths:` filters were mostly noise: `src/**` had to be in the list for the phpDocumentor build, which meant the workflow ran on nearly every PR anyway. They also missed two real inputs — `.phpdoc/template/**` and `composer.lock` — so a template tweak or a phpDocumentor bump could change the rendered site without triggering a build. README links go back to relative repo paths. The README is not part of the Zensical site (`docs_dir` is `docs/`), so those links are only ever resolved by GitHub and Packagist, where absolute URLs break in-repo navigation for no gain. The site pointer and the generated API reference stay absolute.

Twelve commits landed while the restructure was open, seven of them touching the flat guides this branch replaces. Renames merged on their own; the three files that were split apart needed their new sections placed by hand: - Connection retries, protocol version negotiation, sampling with tools and roots from `client.md` into `client/connecting.md` and `client/server-requests.md` - `ResourceLink` and structured output from `mcp-elements.md` into `servers/tools.md` - Protocol version negotiation from `server-builder.md` into `run/server-builder.md` The `setMaxRetries()` note claiming the value is never acted on is gone — #413 implemented it. Callouts became admonitions and cross-links were repointed at the new paths, as everywhere else in this branch.

Both were missing from the examples guide: the elicitation client predates this branch, the roots client arrived with #395.

Main's stateless-lifecycle.md becomes a docs/lifecycle/ section, and the pages main touched — deprecations, the middleware split, the client's modern era — land where the restructure moved them.

The Python and TypeScript SDKs file each feature where the task lives and keep only an era comparison on its own page. Follow them: input-required moves next to the other handler concerns, caching, subscriptions and era routing to "Running your server", and one Protocol versions page carries the rest.

The builder page keeps the setProtocolVersion() knob and links out; how a revision is agreed now sits beside the era it belongs to.

chr-hertel · 2026-08-10T23:09:29Z