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The web editor groups settings into four sections:
  • Appearance and Chat apply only to you.
  • Publishing applies to everyone on a deployment and controls what happens when you commit changes and turn them into pull requests.
  • Danger zone contains actions that can discard unpublished changes.
You can configure these settings from the settings panel. To open it, click the settings icon in the editor toolbar. The settings page displays all four sections.

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Appearance

Appearance settings control how the editor looks while you work. These preferences apply only to you.

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Fit the editor to full width

Enable Fit editor to full width when you need more horizontal space for wide content or source files. The editor stretches the editing canvas edge-to-edge instead of using the default 768px column.

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Open live preview in a new tab

Enable Open live preview in new tab when you want to keep the editor open while viewing the rendered page in a separate browser tab. When you preview your site, Mintlify opens the rendered page in a new tab.

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Show all files

Enable Show all files to display dotfiles, code, PDFs, and other files that are hidden by default. Mintlify displays them in the navigation sidebar. You can also press ⌘⇧. on macOS or Ctrl+Shift+. on other platforms to toggle this preference. To configure an appearance preference:
  1. Click the settings icon in the editor toolbar.
  2. Find or scroll to Appearance.
  3. Turn the preference on or off.

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AI instructions

AI instructions are persistent guidance that the editor sends to the AI alongside your request. Use them to capture style and tone rules you don’t want to repeat every time, like voice, terminology, or formatting conventions. Your instructions apply to:
  • Edit with AI actions on a selection, such as rewrite, expand, or fix.
  • Agent sessions started from the editor.
Each teammate maintains their own instructions, scoped to their user account.

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When to use AI instructions

Add AI instructions when you find yourself repeating the same guidance in prompts, for example:
  • Enforcing second-person voice or sentence case headings.
  • Preferring specific product names or terminology.
  • Banning marketing language or filler phrases.
  • Requiring certain components, like always using <Note> for callouts.
Keep instructions short and specific. The AI follows them on every request, so vague or contradictory rules degrade results.

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Configure AI instructions

  1. Click the settings icon in the editor toolbar.
  2. In the AI instructions field, enter the guidance you want the AI to follow.
  3. Save your changes.
Example:
Leave the field empty to remove your instructions.

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Publishing settings

You configure publishing settings per deployment, and they apply to everyone who publishes from the editor. They control how the editor generates, opens, and merges pull requests and commits. You need admin access to your Mintlify deployment to change publishing settings.

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Lock the deployment branch

To make your deployment branch (usually main) read-only in the editor, lock the deployment branch. Use this setting when your team wants all editor changes to create pull requests from feature branches.

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Pull request instructions

Pull request instructions guide the AI when it generates a pull request title and description. They apply whenever the editor opens a pull request on your behalf, including from Create pull request and Merge and publish flows. Use pull request instructions to standardize what reviewers see, for example:
  • Required sections like Summary and Changes.
  • A description template that links to a tracking system.
  • Tone or length requirements for titles.
Example:

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Create pull requests as drafts by default

Turn this on to have the editor open every new pull request in draft state. You can’t merge a draft pull request until you mark it ready for review. This is useful when:
  • Your team requires a manual review pass before a pull request is open for approval.
  • You want to share preview URLs without signaling that the change is ready to merge.
You can still mark a pull request as ready for review from your Git provider.

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Default merge method

Choose how the editor merges pull requests when you click Merge and publish:
  • Merge: Creates a merge commit that preserves the full branch history.
  • Squash: Combines all commits in the branch into a single commit on your deployment branch.
  • Rebase: Replays each commit from the branch onto your deployment branch without a merge commit.
The editor uses the selected method by default. If you pass an explicit merge method through the API or your Git provider’s UI, that choice takes precedence.
Match your default merge method to your Git provider’s branch protection settings. If your deployment branch only allows squash merges, set the default to Squash to avoid failed merges from the editor.

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Danger zone

The Danger zone section of the editor settings panel contains actions that can’t be undone. Click the settings icon in the editor toolbar then scroll to Danger zone.

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Reset editor

Reset editor forces the editor to discard its local state and sync with your Git repository. If the editor gets stuck out of sync with your repo, reset the editor. For example, if the file tree is empty or shows errors like Unable to find docs.json even though the file exists on your deployment branch and your live site builds normally.
If you reset the editor, you discard any unpublished changes that you haven’t committed to Git. If you have pending edits you want to keep, publish them first.
To reset the editor:
  1. Click the settings icon in the editor toolbar.
  2. Scroll to Danger zone.
  3. Click Reset editor and confirm.
The editor reloads and pulls the latest state from your repository.