Running react.dev locally: markdown under src/content and a check-all that rewrites your files

The prose is markdown under ./src/content and the dev server watches it

react.dev is not a library you install. It is the source of the React documentation website, and the repository is a Next.js application: pages and components live in src, prose lives as markdown files under ./src/content, and the dev script points a remote watcher straight at that directory.

"dev": "next-remote-watch ./src/content"

Content pages get their own lint pass, separate from component code:

"lint": "next lint && eslint \"src/content/**/*.md\""

Two passes with two tools. next lint covers the JavaScript and TypeScript under src, and the second invocation runs ESLint over markdown files, which is the reason the root carries .eslintrc and .eslintignore next to .prettierrc. The runtime dependencies describe what a reader actually gets: @docsearch/react ^3.8.3 for site search, @radix-ui/react-context-menu ^2.1.5 for context menus, and @codesandbox/sandpack-react pinned to exactly 2.13.5 for the examples you can edit inside the page. Styling goes through tailwind.config.js and postcss.config.js, and vercel.json sits at the root for hosting.

Five prerequisites, and one of them is a fork

The prerequisite list names five things, and one of them is a fork of the repo, which tells you what this repository is for. Git, Yarn, and any Node version starting with v16.8.0 or greater, plus a clone of react.dev on your machine. No binary gets downloaded anywhere in the process.

cd react.dev
yarn

Yarn reads the committed yarn.lock, so a fresh clone installs pinned versions instead of whatever matches today. The root also holds two dotfiles, .env.development and .env.production, whose contents the README does not describe.

Then the site comes up:

yarn dev
open http://localhost:3000

Next.js serves it on port 3000, and that port is the only one this repository names.

check-all rewrites your tree, ci-check only reports

Before you push, the contribution flow asks for one command.

yarn check-all

What it expands to decides whether your diff survives review:

"check-all": "npm-run-all prettier lint:fix tsc rss",
"ci-check": "npm-run-all prettier:diff --parallel lint test:eslint-local-rules tsc lint-heading-ids rss deadlinks"

check-all is not a checker. The prettier script it runs is format:source, which writes files, and lint:fix ends in eslint --fix over the markdown tree. Your working tree changes while the command runs, and the push step stages everything with git add -A, so an unrelated reformat lands in the same commit as your edit. ci-check is the read-only shape: prettier:diff only lists differences, and it adds three tasks check-all never runs, the heading anchor linter at scripts/headingIdLinter.js, the eslint-local-rules test suite, and the dead link checker at scripts/deadLinkChecker.js.

Plugin edits need .cache deleted before the server shows them

Hot reload covers two paths, components in src and markdown files in content. Plugins sit outside both, and the failure is quiet: a plugin edit stays invisible until you delete the .cache directory and restart the server. A contributor can lose an afternoon editing a file the running process never reads again.

Git hooks arrive through the same install step, and that step checks where it is running:

"postinstall": "yarn --cwd eslint-local-rules install && is-ci || husky install .husky"

is-ci short-circuits husky install .husky whenever the environment reports itself as CI. Inside a container or CI image that sets CI, your local commit hooks are never installed, and yarn finishes without ever saying the hook step was skipped. Nothing else in the root layout tells you the hooks are missing.

Fonts and OG images arrive after next build, not before

The production build is four commands in a fixed order.

"prebuild:rsc": "node scripts/buildRscWorker.mjs",
"build": "node scripts/buildRscWorker.mjs && next build && node --experimental-modules ./scripts/downloadFonts.mjs && node ./scripts/generateOgImages.mjs"

The build script begins with the same worker script that prebuild:rsc runs. Font download and OG image generation come after next build, which means your pages are already compiled before either network step starts.

That ordering decides how a build fails. A machine that cannot reach a font host ends up with compiled pages, no downloaded fonts and no social images, rather than an early error you could read before waiting out the compile. The --experimental-modules flag is also passed by hand to the font script, so that step is tied to a Node release that accepts the flag, a narrower constraint than the v16.8.0 floor stated for contributors.

private: true and no releases leave nothing to install

package.json marks the project "private": true at "version": "1.0.0", and the repository has no GitHub releases. There is no react.dev version to depend on and no tarball to fetch, which leaves main as the only moving target a contributor tracks:

git checkout main
git pull origin main
git checkout -b the-name-of-my-branch

Dependency ranges differ inside that one file. @codesandbox/sandpack-react sits at 2.13.5 with no caret, so the code sandbox cannot move under a docs page until somebody edits package.json by hand. @headlessui/react is ^1.7.0 and @docsearch/react is ^3.8.3, free to float inside their major versions, and yarn.lock settles the rest in practice. Nothing here explains how to refresh that lockfile, so a dependency bump stays a manual step. The last push to the repository was 2026-10-27.

Content carries CC-BY-4.0, the site code carries no stated licence

Two licence facts live in different files. package.json carries "license": "CC", and LICENSE-DOCS.md holds the terms for content submitted to react.dev, CC-BY-4.0.

For anyone planning to reuse the prose, CC-BY-4.0 is an attribution obligation and LICENSE-DOCS.md is where it is recorded, so read that file before republishing a tutorial page. For anyone planning to reuse the site itself, the picture is thinner: no licence is stated for src, scripts or plugins, and "private": true in package.json only blocks publishing, it grants nothing. That is a gap in the documentation rather than a permission, so the answer belongs to the maintainers.

Translations follow one tracked issue instead of a per locale directory scheme. Contributors who want to translate react.dev are sent to issue 4135 for current translation efforts, which means a new language starts with coordination, not with a directory you can create yourself.

Markdown plus Sandpack where Docusaurus would give MDX and versions

Pages are markdown with React components around them, and the runnable examples come from @codesandbox/sandpack-react at 2.13.5, pinned to an exact version. Teams who want a docs tool usually reach for a generator such as Docusaurus, which reads MDX so a component can live in the same file as the prose, and which treats versioning and extra plugins as packages to add.

react.dev is the other shape. You get one site owned end to end, with markdown under ./src/content, Tailwind for styling, and a check chain written for this repository alone. What you do not get is a generator: nothing here emits docs sites for other projects, and there is no API for adding a page type or a syntax without editing src yourself. Teams that need per version output should stay with a generator. Teams editing React's own pages are the audience this repository was built for.

Editorial conclusion

Read this repository when you are writing or reviewing React's own documentation, since nothing inside it turns into a reusable docs tool. Teams that need per version output or an installable plugin system should look at a generator instead. Before your first commit, run yarn check-all and read the diff it produces, because it edits your files rather than only reporting on them.

Frequently asked questions

Official sources

1. Issues
2. License: CC-BY-4.0
3. Project website
4. reactjs/react.dev on GitHub
5. README