Diátaxis

I and my team did a full set of documentation for handing over a codebase to the client. A large complex codebase with accumulated history and subtle reasons why things were done.

Diataxis was fantastic. It took a bit of effort to work out what the page titles were to cover everything we needed, but then when you were writing a page it was glorious.

It was so clear what you were saying and what "voice" you were writing in. If it's a Reference page you're all descriptive, with diagrams and bullet points. When it's a guide you're more discursive, but you know you're just imparting information not trying to teach. It made it so much easier to be coherent and clear about everything.

How is this different from Divio's documentation system?: https://docs.divio.com/documentation-system/

Update: Answered: https://diataxis.fr/colophon/#origins-and-development (It started with Divio).

I urge people to not read this. Once you do, you will see all documentation will as the flawed and confusing mess it is. Ignorance is bliss!

I never saw the point in Diataxis, but honestly while vibe coding it's pretty convenient to tell an LLM "do diataxis" and get decent first pass documentation out of it.

Posted many times. Here's the most recent time from 2024 (also has most discussion).

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42325011

Perhaps add "A systematic approach to technical documentation authoring" to the title?

Diataxis + ADRs + C4 = The holy trinity of docs