How Jamdesk Works

Jamdesk builds documentation sites from MDX files in your GitHub repo. Write Markdown with React components and push to GitHub. Your site goes live on a global CDN in under 60 seconds. Content stays in your repo as plain MDX files. You can move it to another tool at any time.

Architecture Overview

Your repo is the source of truth. Jamdesk connects to it, builds your site, and deploys to a global edge network.

How content flows from your repo to your users

The Build Pipeline

A build typically takes 30-60 seconds. Jamdesk doesn't pre-render pages. Raw content goes to the edge. Pages render on demand when visitors request them.

Source Retrieval

You push to your connected GitHub branch (or hit Rebuild in the dashboard). Jamdesk clones your repo and finds your docs directory.

Validation

Jamdesk validates docs.json against the schema. It checks internal links for broken pages and bad anchors.

Content Processing

Jamdesk generates your search index, AI chat embeddings, sitemap, llms.txt, and redirect rules from your content.

Deploy to Edge

Content uploads to the CDN and propagates to 300+ edge locations. Only changed files transfer.

Built Into Every Site

These need no configuration.

AI Search

Natural language search over vector embeddings built from your content at build time.

llms.txt

AI-readable index that follows the llmstxt.org spec. Coding assistants and AI agents read your docs from it directly.

SEO Essentials

Sitemap, robots.txt, Open Graph images, and meta tags. Your docs are indexable from the first deploy.

Built-in Analytics

Cookie-free analytics dashboard. You can also connect Google Analytics, Plausible, PostHog, and more.

What Triggers a Build

A git push to your connected branch, the Rebuild button in the dashboard, or jamdesk deploy from the CLI. Jamdesk debounces commits pushed in quick succession into one build.

For operational details (status monitoring, rollbacks, branch deployments), see Build & Deploy Lifecycle.

Security & Infrastructure

Builds run in isolated containers. Builds only read your repo.

Minimal Permissions

The GitHub App only requests access to repositories you select, and no organization-wide scopes. Jamdesk writes to your repo only when you save in the editor, accept Fix with AI edits, or turn on translation.

Isolated Builds

Every build gets its own container that's destroyed after deployment. Nothing persists between builds or customers.

HTTPS Everywhere

SSL certificates for every domain, issued and renewed automatically.

Global CDN

Served from Cloudflare's network with 300+ edge locations and 99.9% uptime.

Performance

Load speed affects whether your docs get found. Google uses Core Web Vitals as a ranking signal. AI crawlers like GPTBot and ClaudeBot give themselves 1-5 seconds per page. Docs that don't load in that window don't get cited.

Every Jamdesk site ships from the edge with sub-50ms time to first byte. That is fast enough for Google's ranking thresholds and for AI crawlers to fetch and cite.

Metric	Typical Value
Build time	30-60 seconds
Deploy propagation	< 30 seconds
First byte (edge)	< 50ms
Full page load	< 500ms

Next Steps

Create a Project

Set up a new documentation site in the dashboard

Connect GitHub

Link your repository to enable automatic builds

Preview Locally

Use the Jamdesk CLI to preview and validate your docs before you push