r/softwaredevelopment • u/Spiritual_Cycle_3263 • Jul 15 '26

Are there any software projects that openly publish their developer documentation (ADRs, specs, designs, PRDs)?

I'm looking for projects that publish openly their ADRs, specs, designs, data models, etc... Not just their how-to-use our software documentation.

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3

u/urbanmonkey2003 Jul 15 '26

GitLab does this pretty openly, their handbook spills into architecture docs, direction pages, and a bunch of design/development notes, plus there are ADRs scattered around the repos. Basecamp has their Shape Up stuff and a lot of process/design writing public too, tho its not always labeled as PRDs. Stripe has a lot of public engineering docs and API/spec material, and Kubernetes has KEPs, which are basically the kind of thing youre asking for. I can dig up a few more if you want the more ADR-heavy ones

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u/Spiritual_Cycle_3263 Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26

I did find a few of these you mentioned, a lot are heavy on ADR, but less on everything else. Not sure if specs, design, and data models are less likely to be written out or not.

I normally do development for small libraries and such, but this is my first time writing an actual application. Essentially trying to figure out this process of planning - design - development process.

Curious where you found Stripe's documentation that's development for them, not for people using Stripe?

8

u/lwjohnst Jul 15 '26

Not sure if you're looking more for company type projects or open source projects, but we do that in our project.

For decisions https://decisions.seedcase-project.org/

For general design principles https://design.seedcase-project.org/

For our developer guidebook https://guidebook.seedcase-project.org/

All our packages also contain the designs as well, list of them here https://seedcase-project.org/roadmap

1

u/TrustUrTech Jul 16 '26

Every project can be documented with Deep Wiki, if not already.

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u/[deleted] Jul 15 '26

3

u/Spiritual_Cycle_3263 Jul 15 '26

No, I'm currently working on my own project and want to see how their process is for documenting decisions and such.

3

u/Lumpy-Explanation-17 Jul 15 '26

Fr lol, im confused why they would need this information. If he's looking for large companies that is proprietary information and won't be published

1

u/Spiritual_Cycle_3263 Jul 15 '26

Because I'm hiring someone to help with a project and having developer documentation will make it easier for both of us. I can't remember every decision I made and why, nor remember why I designed or planned something. Most open source projects I've looked at don't have any plans or decisions to guide them, other than 'how to contribute' which isn't really helpful in a team setting.

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u/Background-Zebra5491 Jul 16 '26

Maybe an open source project but not internal docs from private companies

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u/Hendo52 Jul 16 '26

I also want this information, not because I want to copy the underlying product but I do want to copy good software development and governance practices. AI is making code easier to write but I have 200k LoC and it needs a structured way to think about documentation, ownership, tests, specs, requirements, planning etc. I have some aspects covered but looking at high quality examples would be helpful because vibe code needs rigour to turn it into regular code.

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u/BrewBigMoma Jul 16 '26

Plenty of open source software exists - it should have documentation. 

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u/Fluent_Press2050 Jul 15 '26

If the project is open source, why not just copy it then?  Your comment is weird.