LivingDocGen.Tool 3.0.0

LivingDocGen CLI

The LivingDocGen CLI is a cross-platform .NET Global Tool that generates beautiful, interactive living documentation from your Gherkin feature files and test results.

✨ What's New in v3.0.0 🎉

Release Date: March 5, 2026

⚠️ Breaking Changes

• Default output mode changed to chunked — The new multi-file scalable format is now the default. Legacy single-HTML mode remains available via --output-mode legacy but is deprecated.

Chunked Output Architecture

• ✅ Scalable Multi-File Reports — Manifest, index, and per-feature JSON chunks

  • Reports with 3000+ features load in under 2 seconds
  • On-demand chunk loading with LRU cache and idle prefetch
  • Lightweight index.html shell with JSON artifacts alongside

• ✅ Web Worker Search/Filter — Off-main-thread query evaluation

  • Compact inverted index with galloping set-intersection
  • Three-tier fallback: Worker → local index → manifest-only filter
  • Delta DOM updates for sidebar filtering

• ✅ Scenario and Table Virtualization — Windowed rendering

  • Features with >200 scenarios render first 30; remaining on scroll
  • Tables with >200 rows load in 50-row chunks on demand

• ✅ Runtime Contract Validation — Integrity protection

  • Schema version guards, SHA-256 hash verification, buildId consistency
  • Fetch-with-retry with exponential backoff

New CLI Options

• --output-mode chunked|legacy — Choose output format (default: chunked)
• Chunked output auto-created in {outputBaseName}-chunked/ directory

Impact: Major architectural upgrade enabling scalable reports for very large BDD test suites (3000+ features).

See CHANGELOG.md for complete release notes.

✨ What's New in v2.0.7 🎉

Release Date: February 11, 2026

UI Layout Enhancements

• ✅ Full-Width Responsive Layout - Maximum content visibility

  • Layout utilizes full available width (removed 1400px max-width)
  • Ultra-wide support for 2560px+ screens
  • Main content expands when sidebar is collapsed

• ✅ Smart Header Auto-Hide - Maximize BDD scenario visibility

  • Header automatically hides when scrolling down
  • Controls/filter bar remains fixed at top
  • Header reappears when scrolling up (150px+ threshold)

• ✅ Enhanced BDD Scenario Styling - Better visual prominence

  • Increased scenario card shadow and border thickness (4px left border)
  • Failed scenarios have red glow effect and pulsing status icon
  • Larger scenario titles (1.2rem) with gradient backgrounds

• ✅ Minimized Footer - Fixed bottom-right corner, near-invisible until hovered

Navigation Improvements

• ✅ Navigation Arrows for All Filters - Works with status and tag filters
• ✅ Nested Folder Tree - Full hierarchy support with expand/collapse toggle
• ✅ Fixed Search Navigation - Scrolls directly to matching scenario

Bug Fixes

• ✅ Fixed Scroll Flickering - CSS transition optimization for large documents
• ✅ Fixed Sidebar Path Display - Shows "Features" as root correctly

Impact: Significantly improved UI for better BDD scenario visibility and navigation experience.

See CHANGELOG.md for complete release notes.

✨ What's New in v2.0.6 🎉

Release Date: February 10, 2026

Improvements:

• ✅ Gherkin 35.0.0 Library - Updated Gherkin library for version consistency
  • Aligned with Reqnroll 3.3.2 dependency
  • Improved parser compatibility
• ✅ Enhanced Scenario Outline Parsing - Better test result parsing
  • Recursive test-case element finding (inherited from TestReporter)
  • Test statistics display correctly for parameterized scenarios

Impact: Improved compatibility with latest Reqnroll version and more accurate test results for Scenario Outlines.

See CHANGELOG.md for complete release notes.

✨ What's New in v2.0.5 🎉

Release Date: January 26, 2026

Tag Filtering & UX Improvements:

• ✅ Tag Filtering - Filter scenarios by tags with dropdown selector
  • Feature-level and scenario-level tag support
  • Case-insensitive tag matching
  • Integrated with unified filter system
• ✅ Improved Controls Layout - Better UX organization
  • New logical order: Status filters → Tag filter → Search → Clear All → Theme
  • Enhanced visual grouping and filtering workflow
• ✅ Search Navigation - Fixed prev/next button functionality
• ✅ Accurate Counts - Formula-based untested scenario calculation
• ✅ Simplified Navigation - Removed redundant sidebar search

Impact: Enhanced filtering capabilities and more intuitive controls layout for better user experience.

See CHANGELOG.md for complete release notes.

📦 Installation

As a Global Tool

Install the tool globally to use it from any directory:

dotnet tool install --global LivingDocGen.Tool

As a Local Tool

Install it locally in your project manifest:

dotnet new tool-manifest # if you haven't created one yet
dotnet tool install LivingDocGen.Tool

Updating to Latest Version

To update an already installed global tool to the latest version:

dotnet tool update --global LivingDocGen.Tool

To update to a specific version:

dotnet tool update --global LivingDocGen.Tool --version 2.0.4

To check your current version:

LivingDocGen --version

🚀 Usage

The main command is generate, which produces the HTML documentation.

Basic Generation

LivingDocGen generate ./Features ./TestResults

Specify Output File

LivingDocGen generate ./Features ./TestResults -o ./docs/index.html

Customize Title and Theme

LivingDocGen generate ./Features ./TestResults --title "My Project Docs" --theme dark

🛠 Commands

generate

Generates the HTML living documentation.

Arguments:

• features: Path to feature files or directory (optional if using config file).
• test-results: Path to test results or directory (optional).

Options:

• -o, --output <path>: Output HTML file path (default: living-documentation.html).
• -t, --title <text>: Documentation title.
• -th, --theme <name>: Theme name (purple, blue, green, dark, light, pickles).
• -c, --color <hex>: Primary color (e.g., #FF0000).
• --output-mode <mode>: Output mode — chunked (default, scalable multi-file format) or legacy (single HTML, deprecated).
• --config <path>: Path to livingdocgen.json configuration file.
• -v, --verbose: Show detailed output.

parse

Parses feature files and outputs the structure as JSON. Useful for debugging or custom integrations.

LivingDocGen parse ./Features -o features.json

Options:

• -o, --output <path>: Output JSON file path.
• -f, --framework <name>: Force specific framework parser (cucumber, specflow, reqnroll, jbehave).
• -v, --verbose: Show detailed output.

test-results

Parses test result files (Trx, NUnit, xUnit, etc.) and outputs the standardized execution data as JSON.

LivingDocGen test-results ./TestResults -o results.json

Options:

• -o, --output <path>: Output JSON file path.
• -v, --verbose: Show detailed output.

⚙️ Configuration

You can use a livingdocgen.json file instead of passing CLI arguments. The tool automatically looks for this file in the current directory.

Example livingdocgen.json:

{
  "enabled": true,
  "featuresPath": "./Features",
  "testResultsPath": "./TestResults",
  "output": "./docs/documentation.html",
  "title": "My Awesome Project",
  "theme": "dark",
  "primaryColor": "#3b82f6"
}

🏗 Development

To build and run the CLI locally from source:

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/suban5/LivingDocGen.git
cd LivingDocGen

# Build the CLI project
dotnet build src/LivingDocGen.CLI/LivingDocGen.CLI.csproj

# Run locally (without installing as global tool)
dotnet run --project src/LivingDocGen.CLI/LivingDocGen.CLI.csproj -- generate ./samples/features ./samples/test-results

⚙️ Target Framework

• .NET 6.0 - Requires .NET 6.0 runtime or higher
  • Works on Windows, macOS, and Linux
  • Cross-platform CLI tool

📚 More Information

For detailed documentation, see:

• Main README
• Development Guide
• API Reference

# Navigate to the CLI project
cd src/LivingDocGen.CLI

# Run directly
dotnet run -- generate ../../samples/features ../../samples/test-results -o ../../docs/dev-output.html

✅ Verification

The LivingDocGen.Tool v2.0.0 has been tested and verified with:

Test Result Format Support:

• ✅ NUnit 2 XML format
• ✅ NUnit 3 XML format test results
• ✅ NUnit 4 / MSTest TRX format test results
• ✅ xUnit XML format test results
• ✅ SpecFlow JSON execution reports

CLI Features:

• ✅ All three CLI commands (generate, parse, test-results)
• ✅ Verbose mode for detailed output (-v flag)
• ✅ Configuration file support (livingdocgen.json)

Customization:

• ✅ Multiple themes (purple, blue, green, dark, light, pickles)
• ✅ Theme customization (6 built-in themes)
• ✅ Custom color support via --color option

Platform Support:

• ✅ Cross-platform compatibility (Windows, macOS, Linux)
• ✅ .NET 6.0+ runtime support

📝 Todo List

Future enhancements planned:

• Add interactive mode for guided documentation generation
• Support for custom template engines (beyond embedded HTML)
• Add --watch mode to regenerate docs on file changes
• GitHub Actions integration examples
• Docker container support
• Plugin system for custom parsers and generators