What’s a Component Version?

A component version represents a discrete version of the documentation for a project, product, library, service, training course, etc. Antora looks for source files associated with the same component name and version in multiple content sources and aggregates them together to make a component version. The component version descriptor file (named antora.yml) declares each component version and marks the source files that belong to it. It also supplies additional configuration for that component version.

A component—more formally a documentation component or shortened to docs component—refers to all component versions that share the same component name. A component is never declared directly. Instead, it gets created by having at least one component version.

If there’s only one version of a component, and the version is empty (i.e., a versionless component), then the terms component and component version are effectively interchangeable.