How to use jsdoc with gulp?

Question

How can I create a gulp command to build documentation using jsdoc?

I don't want to use the gulp-jsdoc package, as it is not maintained. And the package I had been using to call it from the command line, gulp-shell, is on the gulp blacklist.

Answer 1

Use node's built-in child_process like this:

var child_exec = require('child_process').exec;

gulp.task('docs', function(done) {
    child_exec('node ./node_modules/jsdoc/jsdoc.js ./lib -c ./jsdoc.json', undefined, done);
});

(This example assumes you have a config file ./jsdoc.json, but it's easy to change the calling syntax.)