MkDocs documentation leads to the latest snapshot instead of the stable version

[IgnatBeresnev]

MkDocs documentation that is hosted on GitHub Pages leads to the latest published version (usually snapshots) instead of the latest release.

How to reproduce

Go to https://kotlin.github.io/dokka, get redirected to https://kotlin.github.io/dokka/1.8.0-SNAPSHOT/

Expected behaviour

Opening https://kotlin.github.io/dokka should lead to the latest stable version, such as https://kotlin.github.io/dokka/1.7.20/

Technical explanation

Dokka's GitHub pages documentation is served from the gh-pages branch.

If you go to kotlin.github.io/dokka, it will open the index.html file found in the root of the branch files.

If you open it, you'll see that it has the redirect to one of the versions of documentation:

dokka/index.html

Line 3 in 7c06c70

<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0;URL='1.8.0-SNAPSHOT'" />

This index.html file is created by the gradle-mkdocs-plugin we use to build documentation. It is created for every single build and, if it is present, it replaces the old index.html file every time we upload the documentation to the gh-pages branch, so you get the new redirect on every build.

Solution

Do not generate the index.html file with the redirect if you're building documentation for a non-release version, such as -SNAPSHOT or -dev. The documentation will still be accessible with a direct link, but it will be somewhat hidden. Visiting kotlin.github.io/dokka would redirect to the latest release.