context site

The site command generates a browsable static documentation site from your context metadata. It provides a human-friendly way to explore your data models, schemas, business rules, and governance — and in studio mode, edit them directly in the browser.

Usage

context site                  # build static site using EJS templates
context site --astro          # build using Astro (component-based, recommended)

Options

Option	Description	Default
--context-dir <path>	Path to context files	./context
--output-dir <path>	Path to site output directory	./site
--astro	Use Astro-based site builder	Off (uses EJS legacy)

What the site gives you

Model pages

Each model gets its own page showing:

• Description and AI context — human and machine-readable summaries
• Governance grid — owner, trust level, security classification, version, tags
• Tier scorecard — Bronze/Silver/Gold checks with pass/fail status
• Schema browser — all datasets and fields with types, descriptions, semantic roles, grain, refresh cadence
• Rules & queries — golden queries (SQL examples), guardrail filters, business rules
• Metrics — defined KPIs with expressions
• Relationships — foreign key relationships between datasets
• Lineage — upstream sources and downstream consumers

Other pages

• Home — overview with model count, dataset count, field count, term count, and owner count; clickable cards for every model and owner
• Glossary — all business terms with definitions, synonyms, and linked fields
• Owner pages — team contact info and the models they govern
• Search — full-text search across models, fields, terms, and owners

Navigation

• Sidebar — browse all models with tier badges at a glance
• Top bar — site title, current page, search link, docs link
• Breadcrumbs — on model, schema, rules, and owner pages

Serving locally

Open directly in a browser:

open site/index.html

Or serve with any static file server:

npx serve site -l 8080

Live editing with Studio

The most powerful way to use the site is through Studio mode, which turns the documentation site into an interactive editor:

context dev --studio

This launches the site at http://localhost:4040 with editing capabilities:

What you can edit in Studio

• Model description and AI context — click to edit inline
• Field descriptions, semantic roles, and aggregation rules — click any field value
• Governance metadata — trust level, security, owner, tags
• Golden queries and guardrail filters — edit SQL directly
• Glossary terms — definitions, synonyms, field mappings
• Model name — click the ✎ Rename button on any model page to rename the model across all context files (OSI, governance, rules, lineage)

Editing workflow

1. Browse — navigate the site like normal documentation
2. Click to edit — any dashed-underlined value is editable; dropdowns appear for enumerated fields (like semantic role or trust level)
3. Stage changes — edits are staged automatically as you work; a bottom bar shows the count
4. Preview diff — click “Preview & Save” to review a unified diff of every pending change
5. Save — writes changes back to the underlying YAML files, triggers a recompile, and the tier scorecard updates live

Renaming a model

When your database introspection creates a model named default, you can rename it to something meaningful:

1. Open the model page in Studio
2. Click the ✎ Rename button next to the model name
3. Enter the new name (e.g., saber-alert)
4. The rename updates all context files — OSI model, governance, rules, and lineage — and redirects you to the new URL

Deploying the static site

The generated site is fully static HTML with minimal JavaScript. Deploy anywhere:

# Build and deploy
context site --output-dir public/data-docs

# Works with any host
cp -r public/data-docs /var/www/html/        # nginx
netlify deploy --dir public/data-docs         # Netlify
vercel --cwd public/data-docs                 # Vercel

Example workflow

# Full pipeline from database to documentation
context introspect --db postgres://localhost/myapp
context enrich --target silver --apply
context site --output-dir public/data-docs

# Or use Studio for interactive curation
context dev --studio
# Edit metadata in the browser, save changes, then build
context site --astro --output-dir public/data-docs

Notes

• The site command compiles context internally — you do not need to run context build first
• The site uses a dark theme with gold accents optimized for long reading sessions
• The --astro flag uses file-based routing and component architecture for cleaner output
• Studio mode requires context dev --studio, not context site

Next steps

• Serve context to AI tools with context serve
• Check your tier status with context build
• Learn about the tier system to understand Bronze → Silver → Gold progression