UI Development Prerequisites

An Antora UI project is based on tools built atop Node.js, namely:

  • Node.js (commands: node, npm, and npx)

    • nvm (optional, but strongly recommended)

  • Gulp CLI (command: gulp) (can be accessed via npx gulp)

You also need git (command: git) to pull down the project and push updates to it.

git

First, make sure you have git installed.

$ git --version

If not, download and install the git package for your system.

Node.js

You need Node.js installed on your machine to use Antora, including the default UI. Antora follows the Node.js release schedule, so we advise that you choose an active long term support (LTS) release of Node.js. We recommend using the latest active Node.js LTS version. While you can use other versions of Node.js, Antora is only tested against LTS releases.

To check whether you have Node.js installed, and which version, open a terminal and type:

$ node --version

You should see a version string, such as:

v10.15.3

If the command fails with an error, it means you don’t have Node.js installed. The best way to install Node.js is to use nvm (Node Version Manager). Refer to Install nvm and Node.js (Linux), Install nvm and Node.js (macOS), or Install nvm and Node.js (Windows) for instructions.

Once you have Node.js installed, you can proceed with installing the Gulp CLI.

Gulp CLI

Next, you may choose to install the Gulp CLI globally. This package provides the gulp command which executes the version of Gulp declared by the project. You can install the Gulp CLI globally (which resolves to a location in your user directory if you’re using nvm) using the following command:

$ npm i -g gulp-cli

Alternately, you can run the gulp command using npx once you’ve installed the project dependencies, thus waiving the requirement to install it globally.

$ npx gulp

Using npx gulp is the preferred way to invoke the gulp command.

Now that you have Node.js and Gulp installed, you’re ready to set up the project.