---
title: About
description: Common questions about Blume — how it compares to other documentation tools, and why a Markdown formatter might collapse your callout directives.
sidebar:
   icon: heart
---

Answers to questions that come up often. Missing one? [Open an issue](https://github.com/haydenbleasel/blume/issues) or ask the in-page assistant.

## How is Blume different from Mintlify, Fumadocs, and others?

Most documentation tools sit at one of two extremes. **Managed platforms** like Mintlify give you a polished result fast, but the build and hosting are their service — you author inside their system and deploy to their infrastructure. **Component libraries and starters** like Fumadocs, Nextra, or Docusaurus are open-source and flexible, but they hand you an application (a Next.js or React project) that you scaffold, wire up, and maintain before and after you write a word.

Blume takes a third path: **the framework is the template.** You point it at a folder of Markdown and it generates and drives the whole site — navigation, search, theming, Open Graph images, SEO, and AI endpoints — with no app to own. It's fully open-source and self-hostable, so there's no managed service and no vendor lock-in, but there's also no boilerplate to maintain.

|  | Blume | Mintlify | Fumadocs / Nextra / Docusaurus |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| **Model** | Zero-config framework; content only | Hosted platform | Library + app you scaffold |
| **Source** | Open-source (MIT) | Closed core | Open-source |
| **Hosting** | Anywhere — static or a server function | Their managed infrastructure | Anywhere; you build and deploy |
| **You maintain** | Your Markdown | Your Markdown + platform config | Your Markdown + the app around it |
| **Rendering** | Astro; core theme ships zero client JS | Their runtime | React/Next.js runtime |
| **AI features** | `llms.txt`, raw Markdown, Ask AI, MCP — built in, no hosted service | Built in (hosted) | Bring your own |

A few consequences worth calling out:

- **You own the output.** `blume build` produces a plain site you host on Vercel, Netlify, Cloudflare, S3, or your own box. Nothing phones home.
- **No lock-in, two ways out.** Your content is portable Markdown, and `blume eject` turns the project into a standalone Astro app that still uses the `blume` package when you want full control.
- **Fast by default.** The core theme is React-free and renders static HTML, so pages score well on Core Web Vitals without tuning. You opt into server features (Ask AI, MCP) only when you need them.
- **Type-safe configuration.** `blume.config.ts` and every `meta.ts` are real TypeScript validated by a schema — not loosely-typed YAML.

:::note
This isn't "better than everything" — managed platforms and full frameworks are the right call when you want a hosted product or maximum control over the app. Blume is for teams who want a production-grade docs site without owning either the platform or the plumbing.
:::

See [Why Blume exists](/docs) for the longer version.

## Is Blume free and open-source?

Yes — Blume is MIT-licensed and free. You install the `blume` package, keep your content in your own repository, and host the build wherever you like. There's no paid tier, no per-seat pricing, and no account to sign up for. The source lives on [GitHub](https://github.com/haydenbleasel/blume).

## Do I need to know Astro, React, or Tailwind?

No. A folder of Markdown is a complete site — navigation, search, and theming are inferred or set with a handful of tokens. You only reach for the underlying stack when you want to customize: [interactive islands](/docs/content/islands) (React), [component overrides](/docs/configuration/customization), or [theme tokens](/docs/configuration/theming) (Tailwind). Even then, [`blume.config.ts`](/docs/configuration) is typed, so your editor guides you.

## Can I use React components and MDX?

Yes. Any page can be `.md` or `.mdx`, and MDX lets you drop in the [built-in components](/docs/content/components) with no imports. You can also add your own `.tsx`/`.jsx` [islands](/docs/content/islands) — Blume auto-enables React only for the pages that use them, so the core theme stays JavaScript-free everywhere else.

## Where can I deploy it?

Anywhere. `blume build` outputs static HTML by default, which you can serve from any static host or CDN — Vercel, Netlify, Cloudflare Pages, GitHub Pages, S3, or your own server. Server-only features (Ask AI, the MCP server, on-demand rendering) switch the build to a server function through an adapter for Vercel, Node, Netlify, or Cloudflare. See [Deployment](/docs/deployment).

## Does search need a hosted service?

No. [Orama](/docs/configuration/search) builds a local index that works in both dev and production with nothing to host or pay for. For very large sites, [Pagefind](/docs/configuration/search) is one flag away. Either way the index ships as part of your site.

## How do I customize the look?

Start with [theme tokens](/docs/configuration/theming) — accent color, fonts, radius, and a `theme.css` for anything else Tailwind can express. Go further by [overriding built-in components](/docs/configuration/customization) or adding [custom pages](/docs/configuration/customization#custom-pages). When you want the Astro project itself, [`blume eject`](/docs/reference/cli) hands you a standalone app that still uses the `blume` package.

## Why is oxfmt / Ultracite collapsing my directives?

If you format your Markdown with [Ultracite](https://www.ultracite.ai) (which runs oxlint + [oxfmt](https://oxc.rs)) — as Blume itself does — you may notice that container directives get flattened onto a single line after a format pass:

```md
:::note
Regenerate the project with blume dev.
:::
```

becomes

```md
:::note Regenerate the project with blume dev. :::
```

Once the opening `:::note` fence is joined to the prose, it's no longer a directive, so it renders as literal text instead of a [callout](/docs/content/syntax#callouts).

### Why it happens

This is a bug in oxfmt's Markdown formatter (inherited from Prettier's Markdown printer — see [prettier/prettier#19040](https://github.com/prettier/prettier/pull/19040)). When it wraps prose, it treats the `:::` fence lines as ordinary text and joins them with the adjacent line, breaking the directive. It affects every container directive type — `:::note`, `:::tip`, `:::info`, `:::warning`, `:::danger`, `:::success`.

We reported it upstream in [oxc-project/oxc#24096](https://github.com/oxc-project/oxc/issues/24096); until it's fixed there, the patch below is the workaround.

### The fix

Patch oxfmt so it preserves the line break that sits directly against a `:::` fence. Blume ships the same fix in its own repo, and you can apply it in any project.

1. Save the patch as `patches/oxfmt@0.61.0.patch`:

   ```diff patches/oxfmt@0.61.0.patch
   diff --git a/dist/markdown-ZuiQU4Xe.js b/dist/markdown-ZuiQU4Xe.js
   index 566b9e6d27f36061d64b93736e238e871e1ee2b2..82d0595acc010807c2939fc4a1717dde887a8555 100644
   --- a/dist/markdown-ZuiQU4Xe.js
   +++ b/dist/markdown-ZuiQU4Xe.js
   @@ -4875,7 +4875,43 @@ function lu(e, t, r) {
    		case "sentence": return Oh(e, r);
    		case "word": return t.parser !== "mdx" ? zh(e, t) : Uh(e);
    		case "whitespace": {
   -			let { next: a } = e, u = a && /^>|^(?:[*+-]|#{1,6}|\d+[).])$/.test(a.value) && !NE(e) && !(t.proseWrap === "preserve" && RE(e)) ? "never" : t.proseWrap;
   +			let { next: a, previous: oxfmtFencePrev } = e;
   +			// Preserve line breaks that sit directly against a `:::` container
   +			// directive fence, so `proseWrap: "never"` keeps the opening/closing
   +			// fence on their own lines instead of joining them into the prose (which
   +			// breaks the directive). Ordinary prose still wraps per proseWrap.
   +			// See prettier/prettier#19040.
   +			let oxfmtIsFence = (w) => w != null && typeof w.value === "string" && w.value.startsWith(":::");
   +			// A titled directive (`:::warning[Heads up]`) parses its `[title]` as a
   +			// linkReference between two sentence nodes at the paragraph level: the
   +			// fence word ends the sentence before the reference, and the body's
   +			// leading newline opens the sentence after it. So when this whitespace
   +			// starts its sentence, climb to the paragraph and check whether the two
   +			// preceding siblings are a (link) reference and a sentence ending in a
   +			// `:::` fence word.
   +			let oxfmtPrevIsTitledFence = !1;
   +			if (oxfmtFencePrev == null && e.index === 0 && e.grandparent != null && Array.isArray(e.grandparent.children)) {
   +				let oxfmtSibs = e.grandparent.children, oxfmtSentIdx = oxfmtSibs.indexOf(e.parent);
   +				if (oxfmtSentIdx >= 2) {
   +					let oxfmtLink = oxfmtSibs[oxfmtSentIdx - 1], oxfmtBefore = oxfmtSibs[oxfmtSentIdx - 2];
   +					let oxfmtLastWord = oxfmtBefore && oxfmtBefore.type === "sentence" && Array.isArray(oxfmtBefore.children) ? oxfmtBefore.children[oxfmtBefore.children.length - 1] : null;
   +					oxfmtPrevIsTitledFence = oxfmtLink != null && (oxfmtLink.type === "linkReference" || oxfmtLink.type === "link") && oxfmtIsFence(oxfmtLastWord);
   +				}
   +			}
   +			// The plain-markdown parser keeps a titled fence's `[title]` as literal
   +			// words, so the whole directive is one sentence. For a newline
   +			// whitespace, walk back to the start of its visual line within the
   +			// sentence; a line led by a `:::` word is a fence whose break must stay.
   +			if (!oxfmtPrevIsTitledFence && e.node.value.includes("\n") && e.parent != null && Array.isArray(e.parent.children)) {
   +				let oxfmtLineFirst = null;
   +				for (let oxfmtJ = e.index - 1; oxfmtJ >= 0; oxfmtJ--) {
   +					let oxfmtSib = e.parent.children[oxfmtJ];
   +					if (oxfmtSib.type === "whitespace" && typeof oxfmtSib.value === "string" && oxfmtSib.value.includes("\n")) break;
   +					oxfmtLineFirst = oxfmtSib;
   +				}
   +				oxfmtPrevIsTitledFence = oxfmtIsFence(oxfmtLineFirst);
   +			}
   +			let u = oxfmtIsFence(oxfmtFencePrev) || oxfmtPrevIsTitledFence || oxfmtIsFence(a) ? "preserve" : a && /^>|^(?:[*+-]|#{1,6}|\d+[).])$/.test(a.value) && !NE(e) && !(t.proseWrap === "preserve" && RE(e)) ? "never" : t.proseWrap;
    			return ou(e, n.value, u, !1, t);
    		}
    		case "emphasis": {
   ```

2. Register it with your package manager's `patchedDependencies`. With Bun or pnpm, add to `package.json`:

   ```json package.json
   {
     "patchedDependencies": {
       "oxfmt@0.61.0": "patches/oxfmt@0.61.0.patch"
     }
   }
   ```

3. Reinstall so the patch is applied:

   ```package-install
   bun install
   ```

:::warning[Version-pinned]
The patch targets a specific oxfmt build — its diff references a file whose name is hashed per release (`dist/markdown-*.js`). When you bump oxfmt, regenerate the patch (e.g. `bun patch oxfmt`) or check whether the upstream fix has landed and the patch is no longer needed.
:::