Documentation Maintenance

Internal documentation becomes stale quickly. This page outlines strategies for keeping internal pages (served at /wiki/E<id>) accurate.

The Staleness Problem

Technical documentation rots because:

1. Code changes faster than docs - Developers update scripts, forget to update docs
2. No automated enforcement - Stale docs don't break builds
3. Distributed ownership - Nobody "owns" documentation
4. Discovery friction - Contributors don't know docs exist to update them

Mitigation Strategies

1. Code Comments Pointing to Docs

When code implements behavior documented elsewhere, add a comment:

// Docs: /internal/content-database/#source-fetching
async function fetchSource(url) {
  // ...
}

This creates a reminder when the code changes.

2. Freshness Indicators

Each internal doc includes lastEdited in frontmatter:

lastEdited: "2026-02-04"

Rule of thumb: If a doc hasn't been updated in 6+ months, verify before trusting.

3. Generated Content Where Possible

Some documentation can be auto-generated from code:

4. PR Checklist

When making significant changes, the PR template should ask:

• Did you update relevant internal documentation (content/docs/internal/)?
• Did you update CLAUDE.md if CLI commands changed?
• Did you add code comments pointing to docs?

5. Periodic Review

Schedule quarterly reviews of key docs:

Documentation Categories

High-Churn (Update Frequently)

These change often and need careful attention:

• Automation Tools - CLI commands, scripts
• Content Database - Schema, APIs
• Page Creator Pipeline - Phases, costs

Stable (Update Rarely)

These change infrequently:

• Style Guides - Editorial standards
• Rating System - Scoring dimensions
• About This Wiki - High-level overview

Auto-Updatable (Consider Generating)

These could be generated from code:

• Command reference (from --help output)
• Validation rule list (from file system)
• Cost estimates (from API logs)

When to Update Docs

Must Update

• Adding new pipeline phases
• Changing database schema
• Adding/removing CLI commands
• Changing environment variables

Should Update

• Significant refactoring
• Adding new validation rules
• Changing default behaviors

Optional

• Bug fixes (unless they change documented behavior)
• Performance improvements
• Internal refactoring

Documentation Structure

Recommended Sections

Each technical doc should include:

1. Purpose - What problem does this solve?
2. Quick Start - How to use it in 30 seconds
3. Architecture - How it works internally
4. API/Commands - Reference documentation
5. Limitations - Known issues and constraints
6. Related - Links to connected docs

Formatting Conventions

Ownership

Current Approach

No formal ownership - anyone who changes code should update related docs.

Potential Improvement

Consider adding CODEOWNERS-style assignment:

# .github/DOCOWNERS (hypothetical)
/src/content/docs/internal/content-database.mdx @maintainer
/src/content/docs/internal/automation-tools.mdx @maintainer

Validation Ideas

Potential Automated Checks

# Check for docs older than 6 months
pnpm crux validate docs-freshness

# Check that documented commands still exist
pnpm crux validate docs-commands

# Check that documented files still exist
pnpm crux validate docs-paths

These don't exist yet but could be valuable additions.

Manual Verification

When reviewing a PR that touches /scripts/:

1. Check if any internal docs (content/docs/internal/) reference the changed files
2. Verify documented behavior still matches implementation
3. Update lastEdited if making doc changes

Quick Reference: What Docs to Update

Related

• ArchitectureE734Technical architecture of the Longterm Wiki — data pipeline, clever design patterns, and the ideas that make it workQuality: 73/100 - System overview
• Automation ToolsE757Comprehensive technical documentation for wiki maintenance automation, covering page improvement workflows (Q5 standards requiring 10+ citations, 800+ words), content grading via Claude API (~$0.02...Quality: 41/100 - CLI reference
• About This WikiE755Technical documentation for the Longterm Wiki platform covering content architecture (~700 MDX pages, structured entities), quality scoring system (6 dimensions on 0-10 scale), data layer (YAML sou...Quality: 55/100 - Contributor overview