Navigation

<Layout> reads navigation metadata from the content/ directory so authors can manage menus in plain JSON alongside their MDX files.

Primary navigation (content/_meta.json)

Add a _meta.json file at the root of content/ to control the links in the global header. Each entry must include a route (path) and the label to display (text). The order of the array controls the rendered order.

[  {"path": "/works", "text": "Works"},  {"path": "/docs", "text": "Docs"},  {"path": "/about", "text": "About"}]

Paths map to MDX files (/content/about/index.mdx → /about) or to pages implemented under src/pages/ (/works, /metadata, etc.).

Section navigation (content/<section>/_meta.json)

Directories that contain their own _meta.json receive a sidebar when navigation={true} on the wrapping <Layout>. Define the relative routes you want to expose within that section.

[  {"path": "/docs", "text": "Overview"},  {"path": "/docs/layout", "text": "Layout"},  {"path": "/docs/layout/navigation", "text": "Navigation"}]

Each linked MDX file should declare a matching navigation frontmatter value so the layout knows which menu to render:

---title: Layoutdescription: "How the docs shell renders navigation and headings."navigation: "docs"---

Directory structure example

content/├── _meta.json├── docs/│   ├── _layout.mdx│   ├── _meta.json│   ├── index.mdx│   └── layout/│       ├── _meta.json│       ├── index.mdx│       └── navigation.mdx└── about/    ├── _meta.json    └── index.mdx

With this setup:

• The global header renders the content/_meta.json links.
• Visiting /docs/layout/navigation shows the docs sidebar provided by content/docs/_meta.json.
• The layout automatically highlights the active entry based on the current path.

Table of contents from headings

When contentNavigation is left enabled, <Layout> builds an on-page table of contents using level-two headings (##) and deeper. Keep heading text descriptive; the generated IDs are used both for deep links and for the right-hand toc column.