# Create a new Collection

A collection is a group of pages that forms one section of your docs sidebar – "Getting Started", "API Reference", "Troubleshooting". Every page in Dewstack lives in exactly one collection, and the collection's slug is the **first segment of every page URL underneath it**:

https://docs.acme.com/docs/api-reference/authentication
                           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
                           collection    page

That makes a collection two things at once: the shape of your sidebar and the shape of your URLs. Pick the slug before you start linking to pages, because changing it later breaks every link into the collection.

## Add a new collection

Collections are created in the workspace editor sidebar, not from the top-level navigation.

1.  Open a workspace and click **Add New Collection** at the top of the left sidebar.
2.  Fill in **Name** and **Slug** – both are required.
3.  Optionally pick an icon and write a short description.
4.  Click **Save**.

![The New Collection panel with the icon chooser at the top – an Auto chip, a search box and a grid of icons – above the Name, Slug, Short Description and Space fields](https://res.cloudinary.com/dstack/image/upload/v1785153624/blob_m7seir.png)

Leave the icon on Auto and one is picked from the name. The Space field decides which tab the collection appears under.

The new collection appears at the bottom of the sidebar with no pages in it. Until it has at least one **published** page, Dewstack hides it entirely from your docs site – an empty collection never shows up in the sidebar, on the landing page or as a tab.

## What each field does

**Icon** – a Tabler icon, an uploaded image, or nothing. Left alone, it stays on **Auto**, where Dewstack picks an icon from the collection's name. See [Manage a Collection](/docs/managing-collections/manage-a-collection) for the picker in detail.

**Name** – what readers see as the section heading in the sidebar and on the landing page. The placeholder is _Untitled_. Leaving it blank fails with _"You must enter a Name of the collection."_

**Slug** – the URL segment. Dewstack does **not** derive this from the name; you type it yourself, and it stays whatever you typed no matter how often you rename the collection.

**Short Description** – one line shown under the collection name on your docs landing page. It has no effect anywhere else, and it is optional.

**Space** – a select that only appears once the workspace has at least one [space](/docs/customize/customize-your-docs-site). It decides which tab the collection appears under, and its help text says so: _"Which tab this collection appears under on your docs site."_ The first option is **Default ()**. With no spaces defined, the field is not rendered at all.

## Slug rules

A slug must be lowercase letters and digits, with single hyphens between words – `api-reference`, `v2-migration`, `faqs`. No uppercase, no spaces, no underscores, no double hyphens, no leading or trailing hyphen. Anything else is rejected with:

> Slug format is invalid. Please use only lowercase alphabets or numbers and only hyphen between the words

Slugs must also be unique inside the workspace. Reusing one gives you the toast _"Slug already exists for this workspace. Please use a different slug."_

Tip

Write the slug the way you would want it in a support ticket. `getting-started` is a better answer to "which page is that on?" than `gs-v2-final`.

## Related

 [Spaces and tabs Split your docs into top-level tabs, each with its own sidebar.](/docs/customize/spaces-and-tabs)   [Create a new page Titles, slugs and where a new page lands.](/docs/managing-pages/create-a-new-page)