---
title: "Pages and routing"
description: "How the filesystem under src/content/docs becomes your routes and sidebar."
---

> Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://nimbus-docs.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Pages and routing

A page is a `.md` or `.mdx` file under `src/content/docs/`. Its path on disk is its URL and its place in the [sidebar](/navigation/sidebar) — there is no separate routing or navigation config.

## File to URL

| File | URL |
|---|---|
| `src/content/docs/guides/install.mdx` | `/guides/install/` |
| `src/content/docs/guides/styling.mdx` | `/guides/styling/` |
| `src/content/docs/guides/index.mdx` | `/guides/` |

The URLs end in a slash with Astro's default `trailingSlash` and `build.format`; see [Links and trailing slashes](/reference/configuration#links-and-trailing-slashes). Slugs are lowercased and folder `index` files collapse to the directory URL. A directory's `index.mdx` becomes the landing page for that section.

- src/content/docs/
  - introduction.mdx
  - guides/
    - index.mdx
    - styling.mdx

## Custom Astro routes

Files you add under `src/pages/` use Astro's native routing and rendering semantics. In a server-output project, a page or endpoint renders on request by default; set Astro's `prerender` export when you want to make the choice explicit:

```astro title="src/pages/status.astro"
---
export const prerender = false;
---

<h1>Service status</h1>
```

```ts title="src/pages/api/ping.ts"
export const prerender = false;

export function GET() {
  return new Response("pong");
}
```

Use `export const prerender = true` to emit a custom route as static output during the build. No Nimbus route registration or allowlist is required.

This boundary is not limited to `prerender`. Dynamic segments, endpoint methods, redirects and responses, and other native Astro route behavior remain controlled by the route itself. Nimbus only intervenes when a route claims the exact pattern of a configured canonical content route, package-injected infrastructure, an active feature, or a published content entry.

Nimbus's `rendering` configuration controls the routes it manages: each collection's catch-all route, and the scaffolded `llms.txt` and Markdown routes that call a Nimbus factory. Those files are yours to edit, but `rendering` decides how they render; `nimbus-docs check --fix` keeps them in step. Other files under `src/pages/`, such as Open Graph images and `robots.txt`, use Astro's native rendering behavior like any other route.

## Page modes

Every page renders inside `DocsLayout` by default — sidebar, table of contents, breadcrumbs, prev/next. Opt a page out of all chrome with `mode`:

```yaml
---
title: Welcome
mode: custom
---
```

`mode: custom` is for landing pages and bespoke layouts. Per-column toggles (`sidebar: false`, `tableOfContents: false`) turn off individual pieces without going fully custom — see [Layouts](/styling/layouts).

## Drafts

`draft: true` keeps a page out of production builds and the `llms.txt` indexes, while still rendering under `astro dev` (treated as `noindex`). Use it for work in progress.

```yaml
---
title: Experimental feature
draft: true
---
```

## Collections

`src/content/docs/` is the primary collection, served at the site root. To add another, such as a blog, see [Collections](/writing/collections). For route and URL helpers, see [Package API](/styling/package-api#urls).

Source: https://nimbus-docs.com/writing/pages-and-routing/index.mdx