The server is started with tobar-segais serve and configured by flags.

Flag Default Meaning

--content

./content

Directory of .zip and .jar archives to serve.

--addr

:8080

Address to listen on.

--poll

30s

How often to rescan the content directory.

--default

(none)

Slug to serve at / instead of the catalogue index.

--copyright

(none)

Notice about the documentation itself, shown in the footer.

--debug

false

Verbose logging, including a line per request.

Serving one product

A server hosting a single product does not need a catalogue listing one item. Name it with --default and / redirects to its latest version:

$ tobar-segais serve --content ./content --default handbook

The catalogue stays available at every other address, and the version picker still works.

If the slug does not resolve — misspelled, or its archive has not loaded — the catalogue is served instead and a warning is logged once. The root never fails because of a typo in a flag.

Watching the content directory

The server watches the content directory for changes and reloads what has changed. Where the platform supports filesystem notifications it uses them; where it does not — which in practice means some network filesystems and container volume drivers — it falls back to polling at the --poll interval.

Polling also runs as a backstop even when notifications are working, because a dropped event would otherwise leave the catalogue silently stale.

Writes are allowed to settle before an archive is read, so copying a large file into the directory does not cause it to be read half-written.

Reloading

Only archives that have actually changed are reopened. An archive that has not moved is left alone, so a reload costs one directory listing.

Removing a file closes its archive and drops it from the catalogue.

Saying who owns the documentation

The footer carries a notice for Tobar Segais itself — it is Apache-licensed, and that does not change. What it cannot know is who owns the manuals being served, so nothing is claimed about them unless you say so:

$ tobar-segais serve --content ./content \
    --copyright "Copyright © 2026 Example Ltd. All rights reserved."

The text is shown above the software’s own notice, on every page that does not say otherwise.

A bundle can say otherwise. tobar-segais.copyright in its navigation document overrides this flag for that bundle’s pages, which is the better place for it: the notice is about the documentation, so it belongs to the documentation and travels with it wherever the archive is served. Use the flag for what is true of the whole site, and the metadata for what is true of one manual. A server hosting several owners' documentation should set no flag at all and let each archive speak for itself. See Bundle format.