Redirect /docs/latest-version to /docs/

[legacydev]

Have you read the Contributing Guidelines on issues?

• I have read the Contributing Guidelines on issues.

Prerequisites

• I'm using the latest version of Docusaurus.
• I have tried the npm run clear or yarn clear command.
• I have tried rm -rf node_modules yarn.lock package-lock.json and re-installing packages.
• I have tried creating a repro with https://new.docusaurus.io.
• I have read the console error message carefully (if applicable).

Description

I need to link to the latest version specifically for future proofing (release links, etc). Ex: https://docusaurus.io/docs/2.0.0-beta.18
However, this results in "Not found".

2.0.0-beta.18 does exist at https://docusaurus.io/docs.

I expect https://docusaurus.io/docs/2.0.0-beta.18 to resolve to https://docusaurus.io/docs

Reproducible demo

No response

Steps to reproduce

1. Go to https://docusaurus.io/docs/2.0.0-beta.18
2. See "Not Found" page

Expected behavior

I expect https://docusaurus.io/docs/2.0.0-beta.18 to resolve to https://docusaurus.io/docs

Actual behavior

It goes to "Not found" page

Your environment

• Public site URL: https://docusaurus.io/docs
• Chrome 99

Self-service

• I'd be willing to fix this bug myself.

[Josh-Cena]

Hi! Our docs plugin never sets up redirects, see also #3407. You need to set up any kind of redirect yourself, either server-side (through 304) or client-side (through the client-redirects plugin).

You can also try the versions option and configure path: "2.0.0-beta.18" for your latest version, so you never have an unversioned URL at all.

[slorber]

@Josh-Cena we discussed a "version aliases" feature in the past but it never got implemented.

That looks quite similar to the current use case and could be useful.

Did a rough design here: #3285

[legacydev]

Unless I'm misunderstanding, the versions plugin looks like a configuration for each version? Feels a little clunky for a resolution. Going to take a deeper look, but not entirely sure that this would support both versioned url + latest version url. We need both of these - one for documentation that needs to point to the latest (readme's in repos) and then specific points for pointing to the latest via version (release announcements, etc.) to preserve history

Server-side isn't really a viable option for us as we would have to submit a request through a different team each time we do a release

[slorber]

@legacydev please explain your problem in a more concrete way, giving example URLs and expected content (or redirect, client or server) at each URL. It's hard to understand in text form.

Server-side isn't really a viable option for us as we would have to submit a request through a different team each time we do a release

There are solutions with modern CDN hosts (Netlify, Vercel and even homemade...) so that redirects can be committed to Git and controlled directly by devs

[tisonkun]

@slorber Today I meet a requirement that exactly needs the version alias feature - for your information :)

See also apache/pulsar#17438.

[tisonkun]

@slorber and I maunally do the redirect as apache/pulsar-site#288.

[slorber]

@tisonkun FYI the redirect is always done better server-side.
If we ever build something it will be at most a client redirect and be less than ideal.

In my opinion your implemented solution is not ideal either, you'd better use a server redirect.

For example, using a _redirects file on Netlify it's as simple as adding one of those 3 declarations:

# Redirect from /docs/latest/* to /docs/2.3.0/* (always, because of !)
/docs/latest/*                 /docs/2.3.0/:splat           301!

# Redirect from /docs/* to /docs/2.3.0/*  (only if no matching static file can't be served at /docs/*)
/docs/*                 /docs/2.3.0/:splat           301

# Proxy from /docs/latest/* to /docs/2.3.0/* (ie the URL still contains /latest/ but the correct static file is served)
/docs/latest/*                 /docs/2.3.0/:splat           200

---

And the non-redirect alias can be achieved pretty simply with cp -R build/docs/2.3.0 build/docs/latest as a post-build step

Hope this helps

[tisonkun]

@slorber Thanks for your information! The Apache Pulsar website is hosted on an Apache Web Server (of course, lol) and I'm still learning how to configure server-side redirections programmatically...

For example, if you Redirect from /docs/* to /docs/2.3.0/* (only if no matching static file can't be served at /docs/*), what if a 404 page /docs/2.3.0/nonexisting? It can cause some false positive redirections (Well, a "standard" * matches only one level down, but the syntax always varies from server to server).

[slorber]

😅 I can't tell you how to configure Apache Web Server unfortunately, it's been a while I haven't touched that and I don't really regret it 😄