API reference, generated from your XML docs

API reference is the documentation that drifts fastest. Rename a parameter, add an overload, change a default, and every hand-written reference page that mentioned it is quietly wrong. Pennington can now generate those pages instead.

Reference pages, generated from the source

Pennington builds API reference straight from your compiled assemblies and their XML docs. Every public type that carries an xmldoc gets its own page at /reference/api/{type}/, with descriptions pulled from the /// comments you already wrote. An index page lists every discovered type, grouped by namespace.

Pennington's own reference dropped a row of hand-maintained markdown wrappers in favor of a single parameterised Razor page. The <summary> text, the parameter list, and the return type all read from the compiler, so they can't disagree with the code. Pointing the generator at your own class library takes one how-to: auto-generate an API reference tree.

A layout built to scan

The pages use a Stripe-style definition list: the member name on the left, and on the right a row of chips — required, type, default — followed by the prose description. On a narrow screen it collapses to a single column. It's a format for the way people read reference docs — hunting for one member, not reading top to bottom.

Two things the generator handles that hand-written pages tend to skip. Interface pages show members inherited from base interfaces under an "Inherited from" heading. And C# 15 union types show their cases as a "Cases" group at the top of the page — tedious to keep up by hand, automatic when the compiler is the source.

The pages also serve two readers at once: paired .humans-only and .robots-only content gives the browser the visual layout and the llms.txt sidecar a plain HTML version. To wire your own library in, see auto-generate an API reference tree.