nickcrew__claude-cortex/docs/guides/DOCUMENTATION_VIEWER.md

Documentation Viewer Guide

The Documentation Viewer allows you to browse, search, and read the comprehensive Cortex documentation directly from your terminal. It is available as both a CLI command and an interactive TUI screen.

CLI Usage

Use the cortex docs command to list or view documentation.

List Documentation

Run cortex docs without arguments to see a tree of all available documentation pages.

cortex docs

View a Specific Page

Provide the name or path of a documentation page to render it as formatted Markdown in your terminal.

# View by exact path
cortex docs architecture/MASTER_ARCHITECTURE

# View by filename (recursive search)
cortex docs MASTER_ARCHITECTURE

# View top-level files
cortex docs README

TUI Usage

The Documentation Viewer is integrated into the Cortex TUI for a seamless browsing experience.

Opening the Viewer

1. Launch the TUI: cortex tui
2. Press d from any view (where not bound to another action) or use the Command Palette (Ctrl+P) and search for "Docs".

Navigation

• Left Pane (Tree): Use arrow keys or j/k to navigate the documentation hierarchy. Press Enter to expand/collapse directories or select a file.
• Right Pane (Content): Use arrow keys, PageUp/PageDown, or j/k to scroll through the rendered Markdown.
• Search: Use the TUI's global search or the Command Palette to find specific documentation topics.
• Back: Press Esc or q to close the documentation viewer and return to your previous view.

Features

• Bundled Documentation: The viewer serves documentation that is bundled directly with the Python package, ensuring you always have access to the correct version of the docs for your installed CLI.
• Rich Rendering: Markdown is rendered with syntax highlighting, tables, and formatted lists using the rich library (CLI) and textual (TUI).
• Recursive Search: The CLI command can find files deep in the directory structure even if you only provide the filename.
• Context-Aware: In specific TUI views, pressing d may open documentation relevant to that context (e.g., MCP server documentation when in the MCP view). If no specific docs are linked, it falls back to the general documentation viewer.

Troubleshooting

If you see a "Documentation not found" message:

1. Ensure you are running the latest version of the claude-cortex package.
2. If you are developing locally, ensure the claude_ctx_py/docs directory has been populated (run just docs-sync or similar).