🕸️ NIST LabCAS Website

This git repository generates the website for the Laboratory Catalog and Archive Service (LabCAS) for the National Institutes of Standards and Technology.

To publish the website, merely make a change to the documentation under docs/source and commit it. GitHub Actions will automatically generate new HTML documentation and update the site in minutes.

📕 Local Publication

In order to publish the website locally (for previewing purposes, for example), simply create a Python 3 virtual environment and install Sphinx and the dependencies we use:

git clone --quiet https://github.com/Labcas-NIST/labcas-nist.github.io.git
cd labcas-nist.github.io
python3 -m venv .venv
.venv/bin/pip install --quiet --requirement requirements.txt

Then build the documentation:

.venv/bin/sphinx-build --builder html docs/source /tmp/html

The complete HTML documentation will be generated under /tmp/html with a top-level page of file:/tmp/html/index.html. Open that with a browser to view it. Rerun the sphinx-build command as needed.

📁 Repository Structure

• docs/source: reStructuredText source files for the published documentation
• docs/source/conf.py: Sphinx configuration used for builds (extensions, theme, and metadata)
• .github/workflows/publication.yaml: GitHub Actions workflow that builds and publishes the site on every push to main
• requirements.txt: Python dependencies required to build the documentation locally

🗓️ Keeping Content Up To Date

• Edit pages under docs/source and commit the changes to trigger an automated publish
• Use descriptive PR titles and commit messages so the documentation history is understandable
• Preview locally before merging to ensure links, images, and code blocks render correctly
• When introducing new sections, update any relevant navigation or index files so the content appears in the sidebar

🛟 Support & Feedback

• For LabCAS product support, see the documentation under docs/source/support
• Report issues or ask questions by opening an issue on this repository
• For urgent matters, contact the LabCAS team via the channels listed on the published support page

🪪 License

This project is distributed under the terms of the Apache License v2.0. See the LICENSE.md file.