• Since some years the helpTOC script is not run anymore. Any changes to the TOC have been made manually since then.
• Because we want to get rid of docs.joomla.org (the wiki) we are looking for alternative ways to serve them. But that will be done at the help proxy, so no need to change anything in the CMS (and hence it could even be done after the release of J6).
• In the wiki we always copied all help pages under a new namespace for the new major release, and then updated the help pages plus made translations (in 8 other languages). Quite a lot of work, we rather don't spend on the wiki anymore. For Joomla 6 in the proxy server a redirect is made for all J6 help pages to the J5 equivalent. That is also why you see them now in the pre-releases.
• This temporary fix is also possible because there are not many changes between the help screens for Joomla 5 and 6. It is buying us some time to come to a definitive solution.

Sorry that statement about the help toc not being run is factually incorrect.

See: #43250 + #43251

• Where is that script used in the build process?
• Why were there manual updates to toc.json?
• How is it possible we have a TOC in the pre-releases of Joomla 6 when the Category:Help_screen_6.0 ( build/helpTOC.php line 99) does not exist in the wiki?

I see my mistake:

• the script was probably "manually" called during the build process in J5.x, after which the toc.json was updated by the script (and not manually); but that resulted in a commit.
• the script was not run in J6 pre-releases. That would probably not give any help-pages as a result.

Anyway: because we want to get rid of the wiki we have no plans to update the Help pages for Joomla 6 in the wiki. So we might not run helpTOC.php for that...

Yes it is always run manually to create the JSON. That's why I posted this reminder. I understand it's in the release making documentation but as that's not public and from past experience of the script not being run that's the exact reason for making the post.

Anyway: because we want to get rid of the wiki we have no plans to update the Help pages for Joomla 6 in the wiki. So we might not run helpTOC.php for that...

I'm wondering if you realise where the json is being used. It is used to generate the menu for the help system in the Joomla admin. If the wiki is not going to be updated/used then we need to decide what to do with the help menu. not the help buttons

The Help > Joomla! Help in the admin is nothing more than an alphabetical listing of all help pages. Except for the added "Start here", "License", and "Glossery" pages, there are no other pages in this help menu than all the individual help pages together.

This help menu can also be generated from the individual help pages. The slugs for the URL are hard coded in the individual views where the help pages are being added to the page: $toolbar->help('Articles:_Edit');. From this "Articles:_Edit" the URL (https://help.joomla.org/proxy?keyref=Help53:Articles:_Edit&lang=en) and the language string (COM_ADMIN_HELP_ARTICLES:_EDIT, used as menu-item title) are automatically generated.

The URLs can be served by the proxy from another source than the wiki. For instance from static HTML pages. At the moment the proxy visites the wiki-API and gets the HTML-page from the wiki.

There is no necessity to keep the dependency on the wiki, only to create this help menu. All information is already in the views. I'll create a new helpTOC script to compose that toc.json for the help menu from the views.