Docs-as-code resources

When I first started out on my technical writing journey, one of the main concepts I kept reading about was “docs as code”, or “docs like code”.

Code itself had always seemed like a bit of a mystery to me, so what was treating documentation as code all about? How did it differ from “normal” documentation and why would anyone want to treat documentation as code?

Keen to find out more, I delved into a whole bunch of resources. Here are just a few that I’ve found really useful to help understand some of the fundamentals of docs-as-code processes:

Resources

 Books

• Docs Like Code - Anne Gentle
• The Product is Docs: Writing Technical Documentation in a Product Development Group - Splunk documentation team
• Modern Technical Writing - Andrew Etter

Websites

• Write The Docs
• I’d Rather Be Writing
• FFEATHERS - A technical writing and fiction blog by Sarah Maddox

Articles

• Docs as Code at Linode - Nathan Melehan
• Ten tips for maintaining a long-term relationship with docs like code - Gary Niemen
• Docs-as-code tools - Tom Johnson
• CI/CD and Docs-as-Code workflow - Ádám Balogh
• Continuous Documentation in a CI/CD World - Jennifer Riggins
• Treat code like code and prose like prose - Tom Johnson

A huge shout out to the wonderful Write The Docs Slack group as well. It’s a thriving community made up of a really helpful bunch of documentarians. It’s a great place to just hang out and learn about technical writing-related things, and hopefully give something back too!