Base plugin

DokkaBase represents Dokka's Base plugin, which provides a number of sensible default implementations for CoreExtensions, as well as declares its own, more high-level abstractions and extension points to be used from other plugins and output formats.

If you want to develop a simple plugin that only changes a few details, it is very convenient to rely on default implementations and use extension points defined in DokkaBase, as it reduces the scope of changes you need to make.

DokkaBase is used extensively in Dokka's own output formats.

You can learn how to add, use, override and configure extensions and extension points in Introduction to Extensions - all of that information is applicable to the DokkaBase plugin as well.

Extension points

Some notable extension points defined in Dokka's Base plugin.

PreMergeDocumentableTransformer

PreMergeDocumentableTransformer is very similar to the DocumentableTransformer core extension point, but it is used during an earlier stage by the Single module generation.

This extension point allows you to apply any transformations to the Documentables model before the project's source sets are merged.

It is useful if you want to filter/map existing documentables. For example, if you want to exclude members annotated with @Internal, you most likely need an implementation of PreMergeDocumentableTransformer.

For simple condition-based filtering of documentables, consider extending SuppressedByConditionDocumentableFilterTransformer - it implements PreMergeDocumentableTransformer and only requires one function to be overridden, whereas the rest is taken care of.