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Hidden pages

Hide documentation pages from the sidebar navigation while keeping them accessible via direct URL, search, or AI assistant for special use cases.

Hidden pages don't appear in your site's navigation, but anyone who knows the URL can still access them. For example, if you create a hidden page like guides/hidden-page.mdx, visitors can reach it at docs.yoursite.com/guides/hidden-page.

Use hidden pages for content you want users to access or reference as context for AI tools, but don't want listed in the navigation.

See an example of a hidden page.

To hide a page, set hidden: true in the page's frontmatter or remove it from your docs.json navigation.

Add hidden: true to a page's frontmatter to remove it from the rendered navigation while still including it in your docs.json configuration.

YAML
---
title: "My hidden page"
hidden: true
---

To make a page visible again, remove the hidden field entirely. Setting hidden: false has the same effect on the navigation, but avoid it on pages inside a hidden group or tab. Those pages stay out of the navigation because their parent isn't rendered, but hidden: false puts them back into search, sitemaps, and AI context.

If you don't include a page in your docs.json navigation, you hide it. This method works well for pages that you don't want to appear in navigation at all.

To hide a group of pages, set the hidden property to true for the group in your docs.json file:

JSON
"groups": [
  {
    "group": "Getting started",
    "hidden": true,
    "pages": [
      "index",
      "quickstart"
    ]
  },
  {
    "group": "Guides",
    "pages": [
      "guides/hidden-page.mdx",
      "guides/hidden-groups.mdx"
    ]
  }
]

In this example, the Getting started group stays hidden and the Guides group remains visible.

To hide a tab, add the hidden property for the tab in your docs.json file:

JSON
"tabs": [
  {
    "tab": "Home",
    "hidden": true,
    "pages": [
      "index",
      "quickstart"
    ]
  }
]

Hide a version or other top-level navigation element

Section titled “Hide a version or other top-level navigation element”

Versions, anchors, dropdowns, languages, and products also accept the hidden property. Setting hidden: true on one of these elements removes it from the rendered navigation and excludes every page beneath it from site search, sitemaps, search engine indexing, and AI context.

JSON
"versions": [
  {
    "version": "v1",
    "hidden": true,
    "groups": [...]
  },
  {
    "version": "v2",
    "groups": [...]
  }
]

By default, hidden pages don't appear in indexing for search engines, documentation site search, or as AI assistant context. You have two ways to include hidden content in search and indexing.

The following table summarizes how each property affects page visibility and indexing:

Property Sidebar navigation Site search Sitemap Search engine indexing AI assistant context llms.txt
hidden: true Hidden Excluded Excluded Excluded Excluded Excluded
Page not listed in docs.json Hidden Excluded Excluded Excluded from sitemap only Excluded Excluded
noindex: true (page frontmatter) Visible Excluded Excluded Excluded Excluded Excluded
searchable: false (page frontmatter) Visible Excluded Included Included Excluded Included
searchable: true (on hidden tab or group) Hidden Included Included Included Included Included
seo.indexing: "all" (in docs.json) Hidden Included Included Included Included Included

The two ways to hide a page differ for search engines. hidden: true adds a noindex meta tag to the page, which tells crawlers not to index it. Leaving a page out of your docs.json navigation only keeps it out of your sitemap.xml, so a crawler that finds the URL somewhere else can still index the page. Add hidden: true or noindex: true to the page's frontmatter when you need the meta tag.

The llms.txt column also applies to llms-full.txt. See llms.txt for details on both files.

To include every hidden page across your site in search, sitemaps, and AI context, add the seo property to your docs.json:

JSON
"seo": {
    "indexing": "all"
}

Include pages under specific hidden tabs or groups

Section titled “Include pages under specific hidden tabs or groups”

To include only the pages under a specific hidden tab or group, set searchable: true on that tab or group in your docs.json. Use this option when you hide tabs or groups to control navigation layout but still want descendant pages discoverable.

JSON
"tabs": [
  {
    "tab": "Storage",
    "hidden": true,
    "searchable": true,
    "groups": [
      {
        "group": "Buckets",
        "pages": ["products/storage/buckets/create-bucket"]
      }
    ]
  }
]

With searchable: true, descendant pages remain in:

  • Documentation site search
  • sitemap.xml
  • AI assistant context
  • MCP server search results
  • Search engine indexing (the noindex meta tag is not applied)

The tab or group itself stays hidden from the rendered navigation.

A page's own hidden: true frontmatter always takes precedence. To re-exclude a descendant group, set hidden: true on it without searchable: true.

At the page frontmatter level, only searchable: false has an effect. Use it to keep a page indexable by external search engines while excluding it from in-product search and AI assistant context. Pages with searchable: false still appear in your llms.txt and llms-full.txt files. See Exclude a page from search for an example.

Page-level searchable does not override hidden: true on the same page. To make a hidden page discoverable, leave searchable unset and either move it under a hidden tab or group with searchable: true, or set seo.indexing: "all" in docs.json.

The relationship between hidden and noindex is one-directional:

  • hidden: true → automatically applies noindex: Pages with hidden: true in their frontmatter are automatically excluded from search engines, sitemaps, and AI context.
  • noindex: true → does NOT apply hidden: Pages with noindex: true remain visible in navigation. They don't appear in site search, sitemaps, search engine indexing, or AI assistant context.

To exclude a specific page from search and indexing while keeping it visible in navigation, add noindex: true to its frontmatter. To hide a page from navigation as well, use hidden: true. To exclude a page only from your in-product search and AI assistant context while keeping it indexable by external search engines, use searchable: false instead.

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