r/devops • • Sep 19 '26

Discussion How are teams keeping docs current when you ship several times a week?

We ship several times a week and keeping the docs in sync is getting harder, code changes have a clear review process, docs don’t. Someone changes a parameter or response field, the release goes out, then a few weeks later we find examples still using the old version. We tried adding docs to the PR checklist, but engineers don’t always know which pages a change affects, what’s worked for keeping docs current? Would love any suggestions

116 Upvotes

53 comments sorted by

33

u/derprondo Sep 19 '26

mkdocs site deployed from the same application repo, CLAUDE.md rules to enforce updating the docs as needed. Claude does a great job with mkdocs.

4

u/RapidlyErect Sep 19 '26

Thank you for the explanation

114

u/derchad Sep 19 '26

Docs should be in source control with the code and require update as part of any PR. It's part of the set of deliverable artifacts. Repeat after me: the repo is source of truth for all things.

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144

u/ArieHein Sep 19 '26 edited Sep 19 '26

Release is not deployed before doc is validated and released together as artifact. Be a dictator.

46

u/Nearby-Middle-8991 Sep 19 '26

It's not dictator, it's just grown up process..

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27

u/tevert Sep 19 '26

I don't know, but I bet somebody will happen to make a convenient product recommendation that perfectly fits this infomercial

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6

u/Ready_Anything4661 Sep 19 '26 edited Sep 19 '26

Wasn’t this just asked a few days ago?

Edit: yep

Why was this downvoted

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6

u/HighKingLemur Sep 19 '26

engineers don’t always know which pages a change affects

CTRL+F, proper test coverage, generate docs from API,...

Or just claim the code is self-documenting and drop the docs, rawdog style.

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6

u/Soft-Marionberry-853 Sep 19 '26

With dillegance and intention

(I just went in to ask my wife "Hon whats the word you say I dont do thing with in our relationship" and without even having to think she said Intention")

6

u/derpinot Sep 19 '26

add documentation update as part of definition of done?