HMD Concepts

Start with pages and namespaces; Git and publishing can come later.

Wikis, namespaces and pages

• Wiki: your whole HMD instance.
• Namespace: a top-level area such as notes, team or handbook. Each has its own page tree, appearance and public or private visibility.
• Page: one Markdown document. Its slug is its path inside the wiki.

team/guides/onboarding
│    └─ page path within the namespace
└─ namespace

This page is served at /team/guides/onboarding and stored as team/guides/onboarding.md in the content repository. guides is a folder, not another namespace.

The title is the name readers see. Changing the title does not move the page; changing the path does. See Pages.

Markdown and frontmatter

Pages are Markdown. Frontmatter is the metadata block at the top of the stored file, holding the title and tags. The editor's title and tags fields manage it, so you never need to write YAML. See Markdown And The Editor.

Links

• Wiki-link: [[Onboarding]] points to a page by its title.
• Backlink: lists the pages that link to the page you are reading.
• Tags: label related pages across topics.
• Use ordinary Markdown links for external sites.

See Links And Navigation.

Git

HMD stores content in a local Git repository. Each save creates a commit, which you can inspect from page history. Writers do not run Git commands.

A remote is an optional second repository on a Git host, and HMD pushes commits to it in the background. A saved page is not necessarily pushed yet: a network failure leaves it saved locally only. See Git Sync.

For what creates a commit, history and conflicts, see Git And History.

A remote is not a full backup. Accounts and local settings need backing up too. See Storage And Recovery.

Permissions

Accounts can read pages, write them, or manage settings, and can be limited to particular namespaces.

Namespaces are private by default. A public namespace lets visitors read its ordinary pages and attachments without signing in, but not edit them. Keep sensitive material in a private namespace. Read Authentication And Access before sharing access.

A hidden page is left out of navigation and search. It is not access control, so do not store secrets in one.

Live wiki and static export

The running application provides editing, search, accounts and history. A static export is a read-only snapshot of one namespace (HTML, styles, scripts and attachments) that you upload to a file host.

• Links within the namespace keep working.
• Search runs in the browser over exported page text.
• Editing and history need the live application.
• Changes appear only after you export and publish again.
• The file host controls who can read it.

See Static Export.

Next steps

• Your First Wiki: put these concepts into practice.
• Namespaces: choose how to organise your content.
• Running HMD: what you need to operate an instance.