Merge pull request #245358 from asymmetric/nixpkgs-doc-build-instructions

# Contributing to this documentation {#chap-contributing}

The sources of the Nixpkgs manual are in the [doc](https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/tree/master/doc) subdirectory of the Nixpkgs repository. The manual is still partially written in DocBook but it is progressively being converted to [Markdown](#sec-contributing-markup).

The sources of the Nixpkgs manual are in the [doc](https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/tree/master/doc) subdirectory of the Nixpkgs repository.

You can quickly check your edits with `make`:

You can quickly check your edits with `nix-build`:

```ShellSession

$ cd /path/to/nixpkgs/doc

$ nix-shell

[nix-shell]$ make

```

If you experience problems, run `make debug` to help understand the docbook errors.

After making modifications to the manual, it's important to build it before committing. You can do that as follows:

```ShellSession

$ cd /path/to/nixpkgs/doc

$ nix-shell

[nix-shell]$ make clean

[nix-shell]$ nix-build .

$ cd /path/to/nixpkgs

$ nix-build doc

```

If the build succeeds, the manual will be in `./result/share/doc/nixpkgs/manual.html`.

  >

  > watermelon

  > :   green fruit with red flesh

For contributing to the legacy parts, please see [DocBook: The Definitive Guide](https://tdg.docbook.org/) or the [DocBook rocks! primer](https://web.archive.org/web/20200816233747/https://docbook.rocks/).