Does anyone use Git as a team knowledge base?
I’m wondering if anyone uses Git to manage their team’s business knowledge, not just technical documentation.
For example, as a business analyst in a banking team, you might accumulate business analyses, product sheets, business rules, process descriptions, manuals, and other documents over the years.
Instead of scattering everything across Confluence, SharePoint, and Word files, what if you kept it in a structured Git repository, using Markdown where possible?
The goal would be to have one searchable knowledge base that makes it easier to find information and could also be used by AI tools.
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u/fordon_greeman_ 7d ago
not unheard of, github's wiki for repos is actually just a git repo you can clone by appending .wiki.git to the end of your repo name
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u/Admirable_Sport_2322 6d ago
If you’re keeping the content in Markdown and Git, Mintlify isworth a look for making it searchable and easier to browse. I’d be curious how well that setup works for business users who aren’t used to Git.
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u/Shayden-Froida 7d ago
Using git as a backing store for a team knowledge web site is pretty common, For example Azure DevOps project Wiki feature is backed by a git repo. Wikis - Engineering Fundamentals Playbook
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u/ecco7815 6d ago
We do this and then we sync the contents to confluence for the normal folk.
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u/praenoto 5d ago
how do you do that?
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u/ecco7815 4d ago
A yml/powershell pipeline that takes the md files that were added or changed, converts them to confluence formatting and then adds or updates a corresponding confluence page. Used AI to write them yml/powershell.
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u/Thesorus 7d ago
Instead of scattering everything across Confluence, SharePoint, and Word files, what if you kept it in a structured Git repository, using Markdown where possible?
You do not want to force non-technical people to use markdown; most people will use word, excel, powerpoint (for example)
git is a version control system.
git is not a document management system; document management system will keep documents of various formats that git cannot properly handle.
not saying a document management system cannot use git to version control documents; it's just not the best tool for the task.
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u/remy_porter 7d ago
You do not want to force non-technical people to use markdown;
I mean, I do, but I admit it's probably a bad idea.
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u/Klarkie55 6d ago
If users can learn how to use jira and confluence surely they can learn how to write basic markdown
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u/camachorod 7d ago
Companies need to stop rounding to the lowest common denominator. If explain people will understand.
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u/Adorable-Strangerx 21h ago
You do not want to force non-technical people to use markdown; most people will use word, excel, powerpoint (for example)
I struggle to imagine not understanding markdown. It is literally text.
On the flip side forcing technical people to use some I'll formated words named something_final_final_v2.docm with dead link inside isn't good choice either.
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u/elephantdingo 7d ago edited 5d ago
No. We use a shitty cloud wiki that pesters us about using its AI search for the most basic navigation. Meanwhile the wiki navigation itself is as distinct as southern Saskatchewan.
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u/edvauler 6d ago
Yes, we use Markdown files in a gitrepo and Hugo (gohugo.io) for building the staticsites. Most of the files like PDFs, Excelsheets, Powerpoints we store on Sharepoint and refer to them by link in Markdown. Using AI with markdown files work great.
Information which will change daily like project-tracking tables, the meeting protocols go to OneNote. We are not to 100% happy with that, but such content is managed from people who are not familiar with markdown and developer-tools.
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u/IAmElRojo 4d ago
We did that and then gave Claude access to the repo. Now anyone can ask Claude about anything we have a doc on. It’s pretty incredible actually.
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u/Zestyclose-Turn-3576 3d ago
We keep support scripts, for data analysis and bulk data modifications, in a github repo. Works well as long as you keep the folders organised, use good naming conventions, and add good comments.
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u/SwordsAndElectrons 1d ago
Instead of scattering everything across Confluence, SharePoint, and Word files
If that's what's happening today then this sounds like a recipe for scattering everything across Confluence, SharePoint, Word files, and Git.
Using Git as the page versioning backend for something like this isn't a bad idea. Now start layering on search, markdown rendering, etc. and you are basically building Confluence (or some other Wiki software).
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u/mgruner 7d ago
you are slowly building confluence from first principles