> For clean Markdown content of this page, append .md to this URL. For the complete documentation index, see https://buildwithfern.com/learn/llms.txt.

# Navigation overview

> Understand how pages, folders, sections, tabs, versions, and products fit together to form the navigation of a Fern documentation site.

Navigation nests from narrowest to broadest: pages, sections, tabs, versions, and products. Every layer is optional, and any combination of them is valid.

## Navigation layers

#### [Sections, pages, and folders](/learn/docs/configuration/navigation)

The sidebar itself: grouped, nestable entries pointing at Markdown files

#### [Tabs](/learn/docs/configuration/tabs)

A top-level row that splits one product or version into parallel bodies of content

#### [Versions](/learn/docs/configuration/versions)

A dropdown for multiple releases of the same content, each with its own structure

#### [Products](/learn/docs/configuration/products)

A switcher for distinct offerings, each with its own navigation, tabs, and versions

Outer layers wrap inner ones: a product contains versions, a version contains tabs, and a tab contains sections. Each layer a page sits under adds a segment to its URL. You can [rename or drop any segment](/learn/docs/seo/configuring-slugs), and a page's own [frontmatter](/learn/docs/configuration/page-level-settings) can override its title, slug, and layout.

## Other sidebar entries

A sidebar can also hold three entries that aren't layers:

* An [API Reference](/learn/docs/api-references/overview) generated from your API definition.
* A [changelog](/learn/docs/configuration/changelogs) that renders a dated timeline of entries.
* A [link](/learn/docs/configuration/navigation#links) pointing at an external URL.

## Where navigation lives

The `navigation` key holds your sidebar structure, and which file holds that key depends on the layers you use. An unversioned single-product site keeps it in `docs.yml`. Adding [products](/learn/docs/configuration/products) or [versions](/learn/docs/configuration/versions) moves it into a separate `.yml` file for each one.

## Beyond the sidebar

Navbar links, the logo, the footer, and site-wide layout are [site-level settings](/learn/docs/configuration/site-level-settings) rather than navigation entries. How readers search across your navigation is controlled by [search configuration](/learn/docs/customization/search).