mkdocs-git-revision-date-localized-plugin

What it is and what it does

This is a MkDocs plugin that automatically extracts the date of the last git commit affecting each markdown page and displays it in localized format on the rendered site. It integrates with the MkDocs build pipeline to query git history and uses babel for locale-aware date formatting, plus timeago.js for relative date display (e.g., "2 days ago").

The plugin works out-of-the-box with the mkdocs-material theme, which natively displays the revision date at the bottom of pages. Other themes require manual template customization. A key constraint is that it needs full git history available during the build—shallow clones in CI/CD systems will fail unless configured to fetch the complete history.

Use it for:

• Display 'last updated' timestamps on documentation pages built with mkdocs-material to show readers when content was last revised.
• Automatically track page freshness in technical documentation without manual date maintenance in frontmatter.
• Generate localized date strings in multiple languages for international documentation sites using babel's locale support.
• Integrate git-based revision tracking into CI/CD documentation builds by configuring fetch-depth appropriately.
• Show relative timestamps (e.g., '3 weeks ago') via timeago.js for a more human-readable revision indicator.

Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page — verify before relying

A MkDocs plugin that displays the date of the last git modification for each page, with localized date formatting via babel and timeago.js.

Yes, if you use MkDocs with material theme or are willing to customize your theme. The plugin is actively maintained, has no known vulnerabilities, low install friction, and solves a common documentation need (showing last-modified dates) without manual effort. The main gotcha is ensuring your CI/CD system fetches full git history; once configured, it works reliably.

Install

mkdocs-git-revision-date-localized-plugin on PyPI

pip install mkdocs-git-revision-date-localized-plugin

uv add mkdocs-git-revision-date-localized-plugin

poetry add mkdocs-git-revision-date-localized-plugin

Installing mkdocs-git-revision-date-localized-plugin

Before you install

Low friction installation as a pure-Python wheel. The package is actively maintained with a recent release (74 days ago) and has been stable since its initial 2019 release. Requires mkdocs and three other common dependencies (babel, gitpython, tzdata).

License in practice

MIT license is permissive; you can use, modify, and distribute this plugin freely in commercial and private projects with minimal restrictions.

Quickstart

pip install mkdocs-git-revision-date-localized-plugin

Then add to mkdocs.yml:
plugins:
  - search
  - git-revision-date-localized

Requires git repository access with full commit history; CI/CD systems must set fetch-depth to 0 (or equivalent) to retrieve modification dates correctly.

Verify before relying

• Whether the plugin works with all MkDocs themes or only material theme without additional customization.
• Performance impact on build times for large documentation sites with many pages.

Package facts

Evidence: mkdocs_git_revision_date_localized_plugin-1.5.3-py3-none-any.whl

Keywords: mkdocs, plugin

Tags

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