Dokka is a documentation engine for Kotlin, performing the same function as javadoc for Java. Just like Kotlin itself, Dokka fully supports mixed-language Java/Kotlin projects. It understands standard Javadoc comments in Java files and KDoc comments in Kotlin files, and can generate documentation in multiple formats including standard Javadoc, HTML and Markdown.

Full documentation is available at https://kotlin.github.io/dokka/1.4.0/

Note: If you are upgrading from 0.10.x to a current release of Dokka, please have a look at our migration guide

The preferred way is to use plugins block. Since Dokka is currently not published to the Gradle plugin portal, you not only need to add org.jetbrains.dokka to the build.gradle.kts file, but you also need to modify the settings.gradle.kts file:

build.gradle.kts:

plugins {
    id("org.jetbrains.dokka") version "1.4.0"
}

repositories {
    jcenter() // or maven(url="https://dl.bintray.com/kotlin/dokka")
}

settings.gradle.kts:

pluginManagement {
    repositories {
        gradlePluginPortal()
        jcenter()
    }
}

The plugin adds dokkaHtml, dokkaJavadoc, dokkaGfm and dokkaJekyll tasks to the project.

Dokka plugin creates Gradle configuration for each output format in the form of dokka${format}Plugin:

dependencies {
    dokkaHtmlPlugin("org.jetbrains.dokka:kotlin-as-java-plugin:1.4.0")
}

You can also create a custom Dokka task and add plugins directly inside:

val customDokkaTask by creating(DokkaTask::class) {
    dependencies {
        plugins("org.jetbrains.dokka:kotlin-as-java-plugin:1.4.0")
    }
}

Please note that dokkaJavadoc task will properly document only single jvm source set

To generate the documentation, use the appropriate dokka${format} Gradle task:

./gradlew dokkaHtml

Please see the Dokka Gradle example project for an example.

Make sure you apply Dokka after com.android.library and kotlin-android.

buildscript {
    repositories {
        jcenter()
    }
    dependencies {
        classpath("org.jetbrains.kotlin:kotlin-gradle-plugin:${kotlin_version}")
        classpath("org.jetbrains.dokka:dokka-gradle-plugin:${dokka_version}")
    }
}
repositories {
    jcenter()
}
apply(plugin= "com.android.library")
apply(plugin= "kotlin-android")
apply(plugin= "org.jetbrains.dokka")

dokkaHtml.configure {
    dokkaSourceSets {
        named("main") {
            noAndroidSdkLink.set(false)
        }   
    }
}

For documenting Gradle multi-module projects, you can use dokka${format}Multimodule tasks.

tasks.dokkaHtmlMultiModule.configure {
    outputDirectory.set(buildDir.resolve("dokkaCustomMultiModuleOutput"))
    documentationFileName.set("README.md")
}

DokkaMultiModule depends on all Dokka tasks in the subprojects, runs them, and creates a toplevel page (based on the documentationFile) with links to all generated (sub)documentations

The Maven plugin does not support multi-platform projects.

The Maven plugin is available in JCenter. You need to add the JCenter repository to the list of plugin repositories if it's not there:

<pluginRepositories>
    <pluginRepository>
        <id>jcenter</id>
        <name>JCenter</name>
        <url>https://jcenter.bintray.com/</url>
    </pluginRepository>
</pluginRepositories>

Documentation is by default generated in target/dokka.

The following goals are provided by the plugin:

• dokka:dokka - generate HTML documentation in Dokka format (showing declarations in Kotlin syntax)
• dokka:javadoc - generate HTML documentation in Javadoc format (showing declarations in Java syntax)
• dokka:javadocJar - generate a .jar file with Javadoc format documentation

You can add plugins inside the dokkaPlugins block:

<plugin>
    <groupId>org.jetbrains.dokka</groupId>
    <artifactId>dokka-maven-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>${dokka.version}</version>
    <executions>
        <execution>
            <phase>pre-site</phase>
            <goals>
                <goal>dokka</goal>
            </goals>
        </execution>
    </executions>
    <configuration>
        <dokkaPlugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.jetbrains.dokka</groupId>
                <artifactId>kotlin-as-java-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>${dokka.version}</version>
            </plugin>
        </dokkaPlugins>
    </configuration>
</plugin>

Please see the Dokka Maven example project for an example.

To run Dokka from the command line, download the Dokka CLI runner. To generate documentation, run the following command:

java -jar dokka-cli.jar <arguments>

You can also use a JSON file with dokka configuration:

java -jar <dokka_cli.jar> <path_to_config.json>

Dokka documents Java classes as seen in Kotlin by default, with javadoc format being the only exception.

• html - HTML format used by default
• javadoc - looks like JDK's Javadoc, Kotlin classes are translated to Java
• gfm - GitHub flavored markdown
• jekyll - Jekyll compatible markdown

If you want to generate the documentation as seen from Java perspective, you can add the kotlin-as-java plugin to the Dokka plugins classpath, eg. in Gradle:

dependencies{
    implementation("...")
    dokkaGfmPlugin("org.jetbrains.dokka:kotlin-as-java-plugin:${dokka-version}")
}

If you encounter any problems, please see the FAQ.