react

Storybook Docs for React

migration guide: This page documents the method to configure storybook introduced recently in 5.3.0, consult the migration guide if you want to migrate to this format of configuring storybook.

Storybook Docs transforms your Storybook stories into world-class component documentation. Storybook Docs for React supports DocsPage for auto-generated docs, and MDX for rich long-form docs.

To learn more about Storybook Docs, read the general documentation. To learn the React specifics, read on!

• Installation
• DocsPage
• Props tables
• MDX
• Inline stories
• TypeScript props with react-docgen
• More resources

Installation

First add the package. Make sure that the versions for your @storybook/* packages match:

yarn add -D @storybook/addon-docs@next

Then add the following to your .storybook/main.js list of addons:

module.exports = {
  // other settings
  addons: ['@storybook/addon-docs'];
}

DocsPage

When you install docs you should get basic DocsPage documentation automagically for all your stories, available in the Docs tab of the Storybook UI.

Props tables

Storybook Docs automatically generates Props tables for your components based on either PropTypes or TypeScript types. To show the props table for your component, be sure to fill in the component field in your story metadata:

import { Button } from './Button';

export default {
  title: 'Button',
  component: Button,
};

If you haven't upgraded from storiesOf, you can use a parameter to do the same thing:

import { storiesOf } from '@storybook/react';
import { Button } from './Button';

storiesOf('InfoButton', module)
  .addParameters({ component: Button })
  .add( ... );

MDX

MDX is a convenient way to document your components in Markdown and embed documentation components, such as stories and props tables, inline.

Docs has peer dependencies on react and babel-loader. If you want to write stories in MDX, you may need to add these dependencies as well:

yarn add -D react babel-loader

Then update your .storybook/main.js to make sure you load MDX files:

module.exports = {
  stories: ['../src/stories/**/*.stories.@(js|mdx)'],
};

Finally, you can create MDX files like this:

import { Meta, Story, ArgsTable } from '@storybook/addon-docs/blocks';
import { Button } from './Button';

<Meta title='Button' component={Button} />

# Button

Some **markdown** description, or whatever you want.

<Story name='basic' height='400px'>
  <Button>Label</Button>
</Story>

## ArgsTable

<ArgsTable of={Button} />

Inline stories

Storybook Docs renders all React stories inline on the page by default. If you want to render stories in an iframe so that they are better isolated. To do this, update .storybook/preview.js:

export const parameters = {
  docs: {
    inlineStories: false,
  },
};

TypeScript props with react-docgen

If you're using TypeScript, there are two different options for generating props: react-docgen-typescript (default) or react-docgen.

You can add the following lines to your .storybook/main.js to switch between the two (or disable docgen):

module.exports = {
  typescript: {
    // also valid 'react-docgen-typescript' | false
    reactDocgen: 'react-docgen',
  },
};

Neither option is perfect, so here's everything you should know if you're thinking about using react-docgen for TypeScript.

	react-docgen-typescript	react-docgen
Features	Great. The analysis produces great results which gives the best props table experience.	OK. React-docgen produces basic results that are fine for most use cases.
Performance	Slow. It's doing a lot more work to produce those results, and may also have an inefficient implementation.	Blazing fast. Adding it to your project increases build time negligibly.
Bugs	Many. There are a lot of corner cases that are not handled properly, and are annoying for developers.	Few. But there's a dealbreaker, which is lack for imported types (see below).
SB docs	Good. Our prop tables have supported react-docgen-typescript results from the beginning, so it's relatively stable.	OK. There are some obvious improvements to fully support react-docgen, and they're coming soon.

Performance is a common question, so here are build times from a random project to quantify. Your mileage may vary:

Docgen	Build time
react-docgen-typescript	33s
react-docgen	29s
none	28s

The biggest limitation of react-docgen is lack of support for imported types. What that means is that when a component uses a type defined in another file or package, react-docgen is unable to extract props information for that type.

import React, { FC } from 'react';
import SomeType from './someFile';

type NewType = SomeType & { foo: string };
const MyComponent: FC<NewType> = ...

So in the previous example, SomeType would simply be ignored! There's an open PR for this in the react-docgen repo which you can upvote if it affects you.

Another common pitfall when switching to react-docgen is lack of support for React.FC. This means that the following common pattern DOESN'T WORK:

import React, { FC } from 'react';
interface IProps { ... };
const MyComponent: FC<IProps> = ({ ... }) => ...

Fortunately, the following workaround works:

const MyComponent: FC<IProps> = ({ ... }: IProps) => ...

Please upvote the issue if this is affecting your productivity, or better yet, submit a fix!

More resources

Want to learn more? Here are some more articles on Storybook Docs:

• References: DocsPage / MDX / FAQ / Recipes / Theming / Props
• Announcements: Vision / DocsPage / MDX / Framework support
• Example: Storybook Design System