Find what you need fast — the search bar, keyboard shortcuts, table of contents, breadcrumbs, and the cross-link patterns that make the docs navigable as a connected web
The Virtuous API Docs are designed to be navigated in three complementary ways: search (when you know what you’re looking for), structured browsing (when you’re orienting yourself), and cross-link following (when you’re going deeper from a topic you’ve already found). This page covers all three, plus the keyboard shortcuts that make navigation faster.
Search is full-text across all four tabs (CRM+, Raise, Volunteer, Virtuous). You don’t need to switch tabs to find content — search ranges across the entire docs set.
Search ranks results by relevance. Each result shows:
The page title
The group and tab it belongs to
A short preview of the matching content
If you see…
It means
Multiple results from the same group
The topic spans multiple pages within that group — typical for cross-cutting topics
Results from all four tabs
The topic exists in each product or applies platform-wide
Results from a Best Practices page
The topic has architectural treatment, not just reference treatment
Results from a Concepts page
Reference material — fields, resources, relationships
Results from a Workflows or Recipes page
Task-oriented walkthroughs — how to actually do the thing
When you find what you need, follow the page’s internal table of contents and the cross-links to get deeper context. Search is the starting point, not the destination.
error recovery patterns or volunteer error handling
auth
oauth flow or volunteer bearer token
pagination
volunteer page size or crm skip take
users
volunteer user upsert or crm contact create
webhook
crm webhook signature or raise webhook retry
Two principles: mention the product (CRM+, Raise, Volunteer) when the topic differs across them, and use specific terms (the actual field name, the actual concept) rather than generic ones.
If you don’t specify a product, search returns matches across all four tabs. For cross-cutting topics (rate limits, error handling, pagination, security), this is useful — you can compare how each API handles the same concern.Example searches that benefit from cross-product results:
Search
What you’ll see
pagination
The pagination page from each of CRM+, Raise, and Volunteer — useful for comparing conventions
webhook signature verification
The verification pages from CRM+ and Raise (Volunteer doesn’t have webhooks)
email matching
Patterns for matching across CRM+ Contacts and Volunteer Users
When you don’t yet know what you’re looking for, browse by group:
Browsing pattern
When to use it
By tab
You know which product you’re working with (CRM+, Raise, Volunteer) and want to see what’s available
By group within a tab
You know you need workflow guidance, or best practices, or webhook setup, etc.
By page
You know the specific page you want — direct navigation
The left sidebar shows the full hierarchy for the current tab. Click between groups to expand and collapse. Use the search shortcut whenever browsing feels slower than searching.
Every page longer than a few sections has a table of contents in the right sidebar showing the page’s headings. Click any heading to jump there. As you scroll, the current section highlights.For long pages (Best Practices, Integration Recipes), the table of contents is the fastest way to skip to the section you want.
Every page closes with a <CardGroup cols={2}> containing four suggested next-read pages. These are curated — the most natural next pages from where you are. Follow them when you want to go deeper on the topic you just read.
Beyond standard page URLs, a few special parameters let you deep-link into specific behaviors:
URL pattern
What it does
?assistant
Opens the page with the AI Assistant chat panel already open
?assistant=<your-question>
Opens the page with the AI Assistant chat panel open and your question pre-filled (URL-encode the question — spaces become %20, etc.)
Example: https://docs.virtuous.org/volunteer/overview?assistant=How%20do%20I%20detect%20deleted%20users%3F opens the Volunteer Overview page with the AI Assistant pre-populated with “How do I detect deleted users?”This is useful for:
Linking from your team’s onboarding docs to “ask the assistant about X”
Emailing a teammate a specific question pre-loaded into the assistant
Embedding “ask about this” links in your customer-facing support content
See AI Assistant for more on what the assistant can answer.
