# How are individual pages generated?

> Open-source DeepWiki — a good answer covers: Per-page prompts; source-file citations; diagrams (Mermaid); parallelism; caching and regeneration.

Canonical page: https://llms-technical-reviews.com/open-source-deepwiki/q/page-generation/

## Verdict

[deepwiki-open](/p/deepwiki-open/) builds each page with one LLM call. `build_page_prompt()` passes the title and the page's file links. The model must open with a `<details>` source list, use Mermaid diagrams, and cite as `Sources: [path:10-25]()`. Context is the top-20 retrieved chunks. `post_process_wiki_content()` then turns those citations into GitHub, GitLab or Bitbucket links with line anchors. Pages run with `DEEPWIKI_WIKI_PAGE_CONCURRENCY` (default 1) and two retries, then an error placeholder. The whole wiki is saved as one JSON cache file. A cached wiki is never updated, only deleted and rebuilt.

[OpenDeepWiki](/p/opendeepwiki/) runs an agent per page with the `content-generator` prompt. It has 6 source-tool calls and writes with `WriteDoc` plus up to 4 `AppendDoc` calls, so a page can be longer than one response. Links use a File Reference Base URL, and `DocTool` stores the files actually read as `SourceFiles`. The prompt includes detailed Mermaid syntax rules, and two normalizers clean the output. The first page runs alone to warm the prompt cache, then 5 pages run in parallel, each with a 60-minute timeout. Pages that already exist are skipped, and new commits trigger `IncrementalUpdateAsync()` on the affected pages only.

deepwiki-open is simpler and has stronger line-level citation repair. OpenDeepWiki is better for long pages, large repos and wikis that must follow the code over time.

## Per-project answers

### AsyncFuncAI/deepwiki-open (answered)

Individual wiki pages are generated by `_generate_pages()` in `api/services/wiki/tasks.py` (line 288). Each page from the `WikiStructureModel` is processed by `_generate_page()` (line 369), which builds a per-page prompt via `build_page_prompt()` in `prompts.py` (line 25). The prompt includes the page title and a pre-built Markdown list of relevant file links with host-specific URLs (GitHub `blob/{branch}`, GitLab `-/blob/{branch}`, Bitbucket `src/{branch}`). The prompt instructs the model to: start with a `<details>" summary="Relevant source files"` block citing >=5 files, use Mermaid diagrams extensively (flowcharts, sequence diagrams, class diagrams — all top-down via `graph TD`), create markdown tables, and cite sources using empty-parenthesis citations like `Sources: [path/to/file.py:10-25]()` (line 108-118).

Generation streams the LLM response through the `research_chat()` pipeline (same as RAG chat), then post-processes it in `post_process_wiki_content()` (`api/services/wiki/content.py`, line 84). This function: (1) rebuilds the `<details>` block with real hyperlinks from the known file list, (2) resolves all empty-parenthesis citations into proper GitHub/GitLab/Bitbucket URLs with line anchors (`#L10-L25`), (3) handles generic file-path citations and basename-only references, and (4) strips redundant empty parens.

Pages are generated with configurable concurrency: `WIKI_PAGE_CONCURRENCY` defaults to 1 (sequential) but each page gets up to `WIKI_PAGE_RETRIES + 1` attempts before falling back to an error-placeholder page (line 268-285). Once all pages are done, the wiki is saved as a JSON cache file (`deepwiki_cache_{type}_{owner}_{repo}_{lang}.json`) in the wiki cache directory via `save_wiki_cache()` (`io.py`, line 52). Existing cache is detected at submission time to skip regeneration entirely (tasks.py line 176).


Citations: [api/services/wiki/prompts.py:25-132](https://github.com/AsyncFuncAI/deepwiki-open/blob/d92819a9c9f3b99416e3580ff235fc9d3adf8b89/api/services/wiki/prompts.py#L25-L132) · [api/services/wiki/content.py:57-151](https://github.com/AsyncFuncAI/deepwiki-open/blob/d92819a9c9f3b99416e3580ff235fc9d3adf8b89/api/services/wiki/content.py#L57-L151) · [api/services/wiki/io.py:52-69](https://github.com/AsyncFuncAI/deepwiki-open/blob/d92819a9c9f3b99416e3580ff235fc9d3adf8b89/api/services/wiki/io.py#L52-L69) · [api/services/wiki/content.py:23-36](https://github.com/AsyncFuncAI/deepwiki-open/blob/d92819a9c9f3b99416e3580ff235fc9d3adf8b89/api/services/wiki/content.py#L23-L36)

### AIDotNet/OpenDeepWiki (answered)

**Per-page prompts.** Each wiki page is generated by an LLM agent using the `content-generator` prompt (src/OpenDeepWiki/prompts/content-generator.md). `WikiGenerator.GenerateDocumentsAsync()` (src/OpenDeepWiki/Services/Wiki/WikiGenerator.cs:366) iterates over all leaf catalog items. For each item, `GenerateDocumentContentAsync()` (line 796) builds a user message with the catalog path/title, a git-based File Reference Base URL, and budget limits. The agent receives a `GitTool` (capped at `MaxDocumentSourceToolCalls`, default 6), a `DocTool` (for WriteDoc/AppendDoc/EditDoc), and a tool budget (`MaxDocumentToolCalls`, default 14; `MaxDocumentAppendOperations`, default 4).

**Source-file citations.** The agent is instructed to read 2-4 key source files, extract code snippets, and embed them with Markdown blockquote source links using the runtime File Reference Base URL (line 843–848). The `DocTool` automatically tracks which files were read; these are stored as a JSON array in `DocFile.SourceFiles` on the entity.

**Mermaid diagrams.** The prompt mandates at least one Mermaid diagram per page (architecture/flowchart/sequence/class/ER). Extensive Mermaid syntax rules are embedded in the prompt (line 850–900), including node ID naming, subgraph `sg_` prefix requirements, and edge label quoting — reflecting real renderer constraints encountered in production.

**Parallelism.** `GenerateDocumentsAsync()` uses `Parallel.ForEachAsync` with `MaxDegreeOfParallelism` from `WikiGeneratorOptions.ParallelCount` (default 5, line 60). Before parallel execution, it "warms" the prompt cache by generating the first document sequentially (line 544–559), then processes the remaining items in parallel. Timed-out or failed documents are logged but don't stop the batch (line 497–542) unless `ThrowOnPartialFailure` is set. Each document has a timeout of `DocumentGenerationTimeoutMinutes` (default 60).

**Caching and regeneration.** Documents that already have persisted content via `DocFileId` are skipped (line 414–421). `RegenerateDocumentAsync()` (line 611) allows forced regeneration of a single path. Incremental updates (via `IncrementalUpdateAsync`, line 660) use the `incremental-updater` prompt with a restricted toolset (no `WriteCatalog`) to edit only affected documents based on `git diff` results between commits.


Citations: [src/OpenDeepWiki/Services/Wiki/WikiGenerator.cs:366-1100](https://github.com/AIDotNet/OpenDeepWiki/blob/d33113c88c56458c202fa6904ec114387319f1f5/src/OpenDeepWiki/Services/Wiki/WikiGenerator.cs#L366-L1100) · [src/OpenDeepWiki/prompts/content-generator.md:1-1217](https://github.com/AIDotNet/OpenDeepWiki/blob/d33113c88c56458c202fa6904ec114387319f1f5/src/OpenDeepWiki/prompts/content-generator.md#L1-L1217) · [src/OpenDeepWiki/Services/Wiki/WikiGeneratorOptions.cs:1-241](https://github.com/AIDotNet/OpenDeepWiki/blob/d33113c88c56458c202fa6904ec114387319f1f5/src/OpenDeepWiki/Services/Wiki/WikiGeneratorOptions.cs#L1-L241)