Pilot: A Lightweight Theme for Your Self-Hosted Knowledge Base
Pilot is a lightweight, flexible theme designed to turn Typemill into a self-hosted knowledge base or help center for small enterprises. Balancing powerful customization with ease of use, Pilot empowers you to create a knowledge base tailored to your brand without unnecessary complexity. With a unique "stage" feature configurable both globally and individually for each page, Pilot gives you the freedom to get creative while maintaining a consistent look and feel. Backed by the intuitive authoring interface of the open-source CMS Typemill, you can fully focus on your content and your audience. Explore the Pilot theme with the demo installation or directly download the bundle for knowledge base software and start building.

Features for a Knowledge Base
Pilot provides a robust set of features tailored to help you build a visually appealing and user-friendly self-hosted knowledge base for your small business:
- Responsive Navigation: A fully responsive flyout navigation in the header ensures smooth browsing through your knowledge base. It supports nested structures and integrates seamlessly with an optional breadcrumb feature displayed in each article's stage.
- Customizable Stage for Each Article: Introduce your articles with a full-size stage that offers options for background colors, font styles, breadcrumb navigation, descriptions, author details, publication dates, and images. Configure these settings globally for consistency or customize them individually for maximum flexibility.
- Configurable Toolbar: Enhance your knowledge base with a toolbar below the stage, where you can add useful features like a search bar, print button, and more.
- Search Options: Pilot includes a simple search feature for navigation titles, ideal for smaller knowledge bases. For more advanced search functionality, you can deactivate this feature and use the bettersearch plugin, which delivers full-text search results.
- Content Navigation: Each page comes equipped with a content navigation panel on the right side, enabling readers to quickly scan and explore your knowledge base articles.
- "Read Next" Teasers: Activate a "Read Next" teaser at the end of each article to guide readers smoothly to the next topic in your knowledge base.
- Dynamic Folder Listings: Automatically list the contents of each folder as teasers beneath it. Nested structures are supported, with subfolders displayed as teasers and pages as clickable links.
- Customizable Footer: Like other sections, the footer is highly customizable, allowing you to display additional information or links relevant to your knowledge base.
- Dynamic Homepage: The homepage features a customizable full-size stage with optional background images and other design elements. Below the stage, activate and configure multiple sections to showcase the most important content from your knowledge base.
- Colors, Fonts, and CSS: Customize the colors of various elements and choose from several system fonts. As with all Typemill themes, you can also add additional CSS rules directly in the theme settings.
The advantage of the Pilot theme is its ability to create a meaningful color scheme and layout for your stage headers. Each area of your knowledge base can have its own stage color, helping users differentiate between topics. You can also enhance the design by incorporating images for specific article types or displaying author names and publication dates, which are especially useful for news sections.

Additionally, the Pilot theme supports a glossary view, allowing you to create an organized and easy-to-navigate index of terms. With the help of the HTML plugin, you can further enrich your pages by adding FAQ elements, making your knowledge base even more versatile and user-friendly.
The Knowledge Base Bundle
Get a head start on building your knowledge base with the Typemill Knowledge Base Bundle. This package includes a curated selection of themes and plugins designed to help you create a professional and user-friendly knowledge base with ease.
In addition to the Pilot theme, the bundle includes the Guide theme, perfect for a documentation-style layout with full navigation on the left-hand side. The bundle also comes with powerful plugins to enhance your knowledge base functionality:
- Bettersearch Plugin: Offers a full-text search feature without relying on third-party services. Results are organized by folder, making it easy for readers to filter and find what they need.
- HTML Plugin: Customize your Markdown pages with HTML to create complex structures effortlessly. This plugin is particularly useful for creating FAQ sections in an accordion style.
- Template Plugin: Load pre-designed templates for various content types, such as documentation and knowledge articles, or create your own templates for consistent formatting.
- Revisions Plugin: Keep track of page changes and restore previous versions with ease, ensuring content accuracy and peace of mind.
- eBook Plugin: Generate professional PDF publications from your website, allowing you to create one or multiple eBooks seamlessly.
- Analytics Plugin: Connect your favorite analytics tool, such as Matomo or Google Analytics, to gain insights into your audience’s needs and behavior.
- Mermaid Plugin: Add visually engaging charts and diagrams to your content using Markdown and Mermaid syntax.
Some plugins are free, while others require either a MAKER License or a BUSINESS License. You can test everything locally for free under a localhost domain, allowing you to explore the full functionality before deciding what to include in your production knowledge base.
How to Create a Knowledge Base with Typemill
Typemill is an open-source flat-file CMS designed for small companies to create informational websites such as documentation, guides, and knowledge bases. It is lightweight, at just 2 MB (gzipped), and requires no database. With its modern and intuitive interface, Typemill makes setup and content creation easy, allowing you to focus on your audience.
1. Download the Typemill Bundle for Knowledge Bases
To get started, download the Knowledge Base Bundle, which includes the Pilot theme and a selection of plugins tailored for creating knowledge bases. Follow the installation guide to set up Typemill on your localhost. Once installed, activate the Pilot theme in the theme collection and enable the included plugins in the plugin section. You can also directly setup your website on your production server or move your whole installation to live easily thanks to the flat-file-architecture of the system.
2. Configure Your Pilot Theme
The Pilot theme offers extensive customization options to help you create a visually appealing and functional knowledge base. You can configure settings for the homepage, stage headers, colors, fonts, and footer. For a quick start, load the ready-made settings available at the top of the theme configuration. This provides a consistent design that you can further refine as needed.
3. Plan the Content for Your Knowledge Base
Before creating content, plan your knowledge base carefully. Define your goals, understand your audience, and develop a content strategy. Typemill is ideal for hierarchically structured content, so create a mind map or tree diagram to outline the navigation and structure of your site. This will help you translate your ideas into a clear, user-friendly layout.
4. Create a Visual Concept
With the content structure in place, consider the visual design of your knowledge base. You can keep it uniform by applying a consistent color scheme and style to all sections or differentiate areas with unique colors and design elements. For instance, assign distinct stage colors to major sections or use images for main pages while keeping subpages text-focused. These customizations can be configured globally or on a per-page basis using the meta-tab settings in Typemill.
5. Create Content for Your Knowledge Base
Typemill makes content creation seamless. Its interactive navigation feature allows you to organize pages with drag-and-drop functionality, transforming your planned structure into a functional website quickly. The visual markdown editor provides an intuitive way to create and format content, while the raw markdown editor is ideal for advanced users.
To speed up the process, use the Template plugin for pre-designed content pages or create custom templates for specific content types. Typemill provides markdown elements for nearly all content types, including tables, images, and even video and audio files. For external content like maps or youtube videos, you can use the embed plugin. The HTML plugin enables you to enhance pages with advanced elements, such as accordion-style FAQs.
6. Optimize Your Knowledge Base
Creating a knowledge base is an ongoing process. Regular updates ensure content remains relevant, and Typemill’s tools make this easy. You can create drafts without affecting live pages, and the navigation uses color codes to indicate each page’s status. The Revisions plugin allows you to track changes and restore older versions of pages as needed.
Understanding your audience is key to improving your knowledge base. The Analytics plugin connects Typemill to tools like Matomo, Google Analytics, or Fathom, providing insights into user behavior. For public-facing knowledge bases, the SEO plugin integrates with Google Search Console, helping you optimize content for better visibility.
By refining your content based on these insights and iterating regularly, you can create a knowledge base that effectively supports your audience while reflecting your business’s professionalism and expertise. Typemill’s combination of simplicity and flexibility ensures a smooth process from start to finish.
Benefits of Self-Hosted Knowledge Bases
Choosing a self-hosted knowledge base brings several significant advantages. Most importantly, it offers complete control over your data and security, ensuring sensitive information remains protected. Unlike cloud-based solutions, self-hosted systems provide extensive customization options, enabling you to tailor the platform to meet your specific needs. This flexibility allows for a more personalized and functional knowledge base that aligns closely with your goals. Additionally, self-hosting can be more cost-effective in the long term by eliminating the recurring subscription fees associated with many Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offerings.
Selecting the Right CMS
The success of your self-hosted knowledge base heavily depends on selecting the right content management system (CMS). An ideal CMS should be intuitive, scalable, and adaptable to your organization's unique requirements. Key features to prioritize include robust security measures to safeguard your data, version control for managing updates, and collaboration tools to streamline teamwork. By choosing a CMS with these capabilities, you can create a knowledge base that is not only efficient but also secure and future-proof.
The Role of Open Source Solutions
Open source software provides an affordable and highly customizable option for building a knowledge base. These solutions grant you the freedom to modify and extend the platform as needed, ensuring it fits your organization’s specific workflows. Additionally, open source tools are often backed by active communities of developers and users, offering a reliable support network and regular updates.
Why Typemill?
For small organizations and enterprises seeking to establish a self-hosted knowledge base with minimal overhead, Typemill is an excellent choice. Its lightweight design, intuitive interface, and robust customization options empower users to create a professional and efficient knowledge base while maintaining full control and flexibility. With Typemill, you can focus on delivering value to your audience.