Required Tools

You do not need much to work on these docs. Everything listed here is free and runs on Windows, macOS and Linux.

Node.js

VitePress runs on Node, so this one is not optional. Download the LTS build from nodejs.org — anything from Node 18 upwards works.

Once the installer is done, open a terminal and check it:

node -v
npm -v

If both print a version number you are good. If the terminal tells you the command was not found, close it and open a new one. The installer only adds Node to your PATH for terminals opened after it ran.

Git

Git is what you use to download the repository and send your changes back. Get it from git-scm.com.

On a fresh install you should tell Git who you are, otherwise your commits will have no author on them:

git config --global user.name "Your Name"
git config --global user.email "you@example.com"

Use the same email address as your GitHub account, or GitHub will not connect the commits to your profile.

Visual Studio Code

Any text editor will do, but the repository is set up for VS Code and the rest of this guide assumes you are using it.

When you open the project folder for the first time, VS Code will show a notification asking whether you want to install the recommended extensions. Say yes. The list lives in .vscode/extensions.json and it is short:

Extension	What it does
Prettier	Formats Markdown so everyone's files look the same
Markdown Preview Enhanced	Side-by-side preview while you type
Even Better TOML	Syntax highlighting for netlify.toml
Todo Tree	Collects every TODO: in the project into one panel

TIP

Turn on Format on Save in VS Code settings. Prettier will then clean up your Markdown every time you hit save and you never have to think about spacing again.

A GitHub account

Free, and you need one to open a pull request. Sign up at github.com.

If you plan to push from your machine rather than editing in the browser, set up an SSH key as well — GitHub's own walkthrough covers it better than we could.

What you do not need

You are writing Markdown, not code. You do not need to know Vue, TypeScript, or anything about how VitePress works internally. If you can write a forum post, you can write a page here.