[Bug]: Sidebar dropdown does not close when the arrow is clicked again

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Assessment

Difficulty
2/5
Estimated time
1-3 hours
Newbie friendliness
68/100
Issue type
Bug
Clarity
Mostly clear
Activity status
Active
Tech stack
javascript, react
Domain
documentation, frontend

Research direction

Start at the sidebar on https://react.dev/learn/installation and trace the click handler for the expanded section's arrow in the documentation site. Reproduce the behavior in Chrome, then verify that clicking the arrow again collapses the section while navigation and active-page context still work.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

bug: unconfirmed
Summary

In the left sidebar navigation, when a section with sub-items is expanded (for example, "Installation"), clicking its downward-facing arrow again does not collapse the section. Users naturally expect an expand/collapse toggle arrow to work in both directions — even if this is intentional (e.g., to keep the active page's context visible), it hurts the UX since users assume clicking again will close the dropdown.

Page

https://react.dev/learn/installation

Details

To Reproduce

  1. Go to any documentation page with an expanded sidebar section, such as https://react.dev/learn/installation.
  2. Locate the left sidebar navigation.
  3. Click on the downward-facing arrow next to the currently active/expanded section (e.g., "Installation").
  4. Notice that the section does not collapse as expected.

Expected behavior
Clicking the dropdown arrow of an already expanded section should toggle it back to a collapsed state.

Desktop:

  • OS: Windows
  • Browser: Chrome

Additional context
Observed on the main react.dev documentation site. Fixing this would make the navigation feel more intuitive and aligned with standard UI patterns for accordions/dropdowns.

Dominant language
JavaScript
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Avg merge
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Merged PRs (30d)
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