Development teams should write all documentation in plain text for easy reading and editing in the IDE. The Integrated Development Environment (IDE) is developers’ most widely used tool, including for documentation. You can implement this workflow as part of your developer experience strategy. Here is an outline of the Docs as Code approach in practice, including the tools and processes for implementing DaC in your organization. With DaC, you branch the documentation when you branch the code, so versioning is done automatically. Most documentation tools have versioning features, but it is still time-consuming to keep documentation in sync. Documentation versioningĭocumentation versioning is important if your project has multiple software versions that are used in parallel – it is critical to clarify which version the documentation relates to. These may include identifying broken links, style errors, or formatting issues. Publishing documentation as part of the CI/CD pipeline lets you automate documentation checks. A shared workflow helps reduce friction and keep everyone on the same page. Writers and developers must work together on complex projects to keep documentation in sync and allow writers to review changes by developers. Writer-developer collaborationĭedicated technical writers should use the same methods and tools as the developers to ensure collaboration. You could use documentation previews for all pull requests to help reviewers check the documentation’s accuracy. If the team fails to update the documentation when making a change, the code review should catch it. With DaC, you use the same system to review documentation. The code reviews aim to promote collaboration while standardizing workflows and maintaining code quality. Most organizations manage code changes with pull request workflows – developers submit changes for review before publishing to the code base. Using the same tools to review documentation and code Documentation as code solutions like Swimm can help reduce this burden by updating documentation automatically. However, this still requires ongoing vigilance by developers to update the documentation. Developers can update the docs when they change the code – the local availability of documentation also allows developers to update and search sections themselves, rather than rely on a technical writer. Keeping documentation next to code can help keep it up to date. If you keep documentation in a separate system, development teams often forget about it – in the worst case, there is no clear source of truth for documentation.ĭisorganized documentation can increase technical debt. When a page in the documentation is outdated, it can confuse new employees, remote workers, or end users, impacting productivity. Benefits of Documentation as CodeĭaC methods provide the following advantages. This is part of a series of articles about code documentation. Another aspect of the DaC process is the ability to automatically test for formatting and style errors and ensure a new version of the documentation is ready for deployment. It also helps ensure all your documentation shares a consistent structure and language. Using a DaC approach reduces manual work, allowing documentation writers to focus on creating accurate, usable information. This approach is quickly gaining popularity among software teams. Documentation as Code (DaC) is a way for technical writers and developers to create and publish documents using the same tools and processes used to write code.
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