Skip to content

Setting up tags

Material for MkDocs adds first-class support for categorizing pages with tags, which adds the possibility to group related pages and make them discoverable via search and a dedicated tags index. If your documentation is large, tags can help to discover relevant information faster.

Configuration

Built-in tags plugin

8.2.0

The built-in tags plugin adds the ability to categorize any page with tags as part of the front matter of the page. In order to add support for tags, add the following lines to mkdocs.yml:

plugins:
  - tags

For a list of all settings, please consult the plugin documentation.

Tag icons and identifiers

8.5.0 .zip

Each tag can be associated with an icon, which is then rendered inside the tag. Before assigning icons to tags, associate each tag with a unique identifier, by adding the following to mkdocs.yml:

extra:
  tags:
    <tag>: <identifier> # (1)!
  1. The identifier can only include alphanumeric characters, as well as dashes and underscores. For example, if you have a tag Compatibility, you can set compat as an identifier:

    extra:
      tags:
        Compatibility: compat
    

    Identifiers can be reused between tags. Tags which are not explicitly associated will use the default tag icon which is

Next, each identifier can be associated with an icon, even a custom icon, by adding the following lines to mkdocs.yml under the theme.icon configuration setting:

theme:
  icon:
    tag:
      <identifier>: <icon> # (1)!
  1. Enter a few keywords to find the perfect icon using our icon search and click on the shortcode to copy it to your clipboard:

    theme:
      icon:
        tag:
          default: <icon>
    
    Expand to inspect example
    theme:
      icon:
        tag:
          html: fontawesome/brands/html5
          js: fontawesome/brands/js
          css:  fontawesome/brands/css3
    extra:
      tags:
        HTML5: html
        JavaScript: js
        CSS: css
    

    Usage

    Adding tags

    8.2.0 .zip

    When the built-in tags plugin is enabled, tags can be added for a document with the front matter tags property. Add the following lines at the top of a Markdown file:

    ---
    tags:
      - HTML5
      - JavaScript
      - CSS
    ---
    
    ...
    

    The page will now render with those tags above the main headline and within the search preview, which now allows to find pages by tags.

    How to set tags for an entire folder?

    With the help of the built-in meta plugin, you can ensure that tags are set for an entire section and all nested pages, by creating a .meta.yml file in the corresponding folder with the following content:

    tags:
      - HTML5
      - JavaScript
      - CSS
    

    The tags set in .meta.yml are merged and deduplicated with the tags defined for a page, which means you can define common tags in .meta.yml and then add specific tags for each page. The tags in .meta.yml are appended.

    Adding a tags index

    8.2.0 .zip

    The built-in tags plugin allows to define a file to render a tags index, which can be any page that is part of the nav section. To add a tags index, create a page, e.g. tags.md:

    # Tags
    
    Following is a list of relevant tags:
    
    [TAGS]
    

    The [TAGS] marker specifies the position of the tags index, i.e. it is replaced with the actual tags index when the page is rendered. You can include arbitrary content before and after the marker:

    Tags index

    Hiding tags on a page

    While the tags are rendered above the main headline, sometimes, it might be desirable to hide them for a specific page, which can be achieved with the front matter hide property:

    ---
    hide:
      - tags
    ---
    
    # Page title
    ...