Search ALL the docs

Search hundreds of documentation sites from DevDocs and other sources via Alfred. Recommended by the Alfred team.

Table of Contents

• Installation
• DevDocs
  • Usage
  • Pinning specific versions
  • Icons
• Extras
  • Documentation sites
  • Utilities
• Reload caches
• Maintenance notes
• About the developer

Installation

➡️ Download the latest release.

DevDocs

Enable the devdocs you want to use in the workflow configuration. The enabled devdocs are searched by using the name as keyword, for example haskell foobar to search the Haskell DevDocs for "foobar."

A few common languages have aliases (shorter keywords) noted in the popup selection, such as

js for JavaScript. In this case, you use js foobar to search instead.

Usage

• ⏎: Open the documentation site.
• ⌥⏎: Copy the URL of the documentation site to the clipboard.
• ⌘⏎: Copy the entry's text to the clipboard.

Pinning specific versions

1. In the workflow configuration, go to the pinned devdocs versions section. (Depending on your screen height, you might need to scroll down.)
2. The versions available are listed under the key slug in this json file.
3. The replacements take the form alfred_keyword:pinned_version, one version change per line. For example, to pin the node and python use:

txt node:node~18_lts

txt py:python~3.11

1. Afterward, reload the caches via the Alfred keyword :docs-reload to ensure the new versions are used.

Icons

Search icons for specific documentation sites are provided by adding a file to the directory ./devdocs/icons/{keyword}.png. PRs are welcome.

Extras

Documentation sites

• biome: biome docs & rules
• ruff: ruff docs & rules
• sc: shellcheck wiki
• pandoc: pandoc user manual
• wt: WezTerm docs
• yq: yq docs
• oh: Obsidian help
• odd: Obsidian developer docs
• ddg: DuckDuckGo help pages
• man: man pages (and their options) at mankier

Utilities

• color: named CSS colors
• keycode: macOS key codes
  • ⏎: Copy key code
  • ⌥⏎: Copy AppleScript
• appid: app-id of installed macOS apps
• win: window information for the frontmost app
• http: HTTP status codes
• as: AppleScript Dictionaries of installed apps
• sound: macOS System Sounds
  • ⏎: Preview (technically: Pre-listen)
  • ⌥⏎: Copy sound path
• Get the Uniform Type Identifier (UTI) of a selected file via the Universal Action.

Reload caches

In case of a recent change to a documentation site, you can manually trigger refreshing the cache via the Alfred keyword :docs-reload.

Maintenance notes

1. Remote: Twice per month, a GitHub Action is run that checks for devdocs updates. If updates are found, the keyword-slug-map available on this GitHub remote is updated. The info.plist is also updated in case not only a new version, but an entirely new documentation site becomes available.
2. Local: Every week, the locally available workflow fetches an update from the keymap-slug-map and the info.plist files from the GitHub remote. The update to the info.plist is required, so that newly available documentation sites also show up in the dropdown menus of the workflow configuration.
3. This means that any devdocs update is available to the user after three weeks at the latest. (The local cache can be manually updated via the Alfred keyword via :docs-reload to remove the seven-day delay.)
4. The purpose of this setup is to fully automate the process of making devdocs updates available to the user without requiring manual action. Furthermore, no separate release of the workflow is required.

About the developer

In my day job, I am a sociologist studying the social mechanisms underlying the digital economy. For my PhD project, I investigate the governance of the app economy and how software ecosystems manage the tension between innovation and compatibility. If you are interested in this subject, feel free to get in touch.

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