mdBook Markdown Documentation Generator

mdBook is a command-line tool and Rust library for creating modern online books from Markdown text files, developed and maintained by the Rust programming language team. It serves as the documentation engine for the official Rust Programming Language book and numerous other open source project documentation sites. The tool converts a directory of Markdown files organized in a hierarchical structure into a navigable, searchable HTML book with a table of contents, chapter navigation, and syntax highlighting for code blocks. mdBook supports custom themes through HTML templates using the Handlebars templating engine, enabling complete visual customization. Built-in preprocessors handle common transformations like link validation and custom variable substitution. The tool ships with a built-in search indexer that generates a client-side search experience using the Elasticlunr.js library, allowing readers to search across all book content without server-side dependencies. mdBook supports embedding interactive code blocks through integrations with Rust Playground, enabling readers to execute Rust code directly in the browser. Custom preprocessors and backends can be implemented in any language through a JSON-based plugin protocol, extending the tool with custom renderers such as PDF generation through LaTeX or EPUB for e-book distribution. The mdbook serve command provides live-reloading during development.