- **General Documentation**: written by the [developers responsible by creating features](#contributing-to-docs). Should be submitted in the same merge request containing code. Feature proposals (by GitLab contributors) should also be accompanied by its respective documentation. They can be later improved by PMs and Technical Writers.
- **[Technical Articles](#technical-articles)**: written by any [GitLab Team](https://about.gitlab.com/team/) member, GitLab contributors, or [Community Writers](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/product/technical-writing/community-writers/).
- **Indexes per topic**: initially prepared by the Technical Writing Team, and kept up-to-date by developers and PMs in the same merge request containing code. They gather all resources for that topic in a single page (user and admin documentation, articles, and third-party docs).
Whenever a feature is changed, updated, introduced, or deprecated, the merge
request introducing these changes must be accompanied by the documentation
(either updating existing ones or creating new ones). This is also valid when
changes are introduced to the UI.
The one resposible for writing the first piece of documentation is the developer who
wrote the code. It's the job of the Product Manager to ensure all features are
shipped with its docs, whether is a small or big change. At the pace GitLab evolves,
this is the only way to keep the docs up-to-date. If you have any questions about it,
please ask a Technical Writer. Otherwise, when your content is ready, assign one of
them to review it for you.
We use the [monthly release blog post](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/marketing/blog/release-posts/#monthly-releases) as a changelog checklist to ensure everything
is documented.
### Feature overview and use cases
Every major feature (regardless if present in GitLab Community or Enterprise editions)
should present, at the beginning of the document, two main sections: **overview** and
**use cases**. Every GitLab EE-only feature should also contain these sections.
**Overview**: at the name suggests, the goal here is to provide an overview of the feature.
Describe what is it, what it does, why it is important/cool/nice-to-have,
what problem it solves, and what you can do with this feature that you couldn't
do before.
**Use cases**: provide at least two, ideally three, use cases for every major feature.
You should answer this question: what can you do with this feature/change? Use cases
are examples of how this feauture or change can be used in real life.
Examples:
- CE and EE: [Issues](../user/project/issues/index.md#use-cases)
- CE and EE: [Merge Requests](../user/project/merge_requests/index.md#overview)
Currently GitLab docs use Redcarpet as [markdown](../user/markdown.md) engine, but there's an [open discussion](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/gitlab-docs/issues/50) for implementing Kramdown in the near future.
1. [`ee_compat_check`](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/development/automatic_ce_ee_merge.html#avoiding-ce-gt-ee-merge-conflicts-beforehand) (runs on CE only):
When you submit a merge request to GitLab Community Edition (CE),
there is this additional job that runs against Enterprise Edition (EE)
and checks if your changes can apply cleanly to the EE codebase.
If that job fails, read the instructions in the job log for what to do next.
As CE is merged into EE once a day, it's important to avoid merge conflicts.
Submitting an EE-equivalent merge request cherry-picking all commits from CE to EE is
General documentation is categorized by _User_, _Admin_, and _Contributor_, and describe what that feature is, what it does, and its available settings.
### Technical Articles
Technical articles replace technical content that once lived in the [GitLab Blog](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/), where they got out-of-date and weren't easily found.
They are topic-related documentation, written with an user-friendly approach and language, aiming to provide the community with guidance on specific processes to achieve certain objectives.
A technical article guides users and/or admins to achieve certain objectives (within guides and tutorials), or provide an overview of that particular topic or feature (within technical overviews). It can also describe the use, implementation, or integration of third-party tools with GitLab.
They should be placed in a new directory named `/article-title/index.md` under a topic-related folder, and their images should be placed in `/article-title/img/`. For example, a new article on GitLab Pages should be placed in `doc/user/project/pages/article-title/` and a new article on GitLab CI/CD should be placed in `doc/ci/article-title/`.
#### Types of Technical Articles
- **User guides**: technical content to guide regular users from point A to point B
- **Admin guides**: technical content to guide administrators of GitLab instances from point A to point B
- **Tutorials**: technical content provided step-by-step on how to do things, or how to reach very specific objectives
#### Understanding guides, tutorials, and technical overviews
Suppose there's a process to go from point A to point B in 5 steps: `(A) 1 > 2 > 3 > 4 > 5 (B)`.
A **guide** can be understood as a description of certain processes to achieve a particular objective. A guide brings you from A to B describing the characteristics of that process, but not necessarily going over each step. It can mention, for example, steps 2 and 3, but does not necessarily explain how to accomplish them.
- Live example: "GitLab Pages from A to Z - [Part 1](../user/project/pages/getting_started_part_one.md) to [Part 4](../user/project/pages/getting_started_part_four.md)"
A **tutorial** requires a clear **step-by-step** guidance to achieve a singular objective. It brings you from A to B, describing precisely all the necessary steps involved in that process, showing each of the 5 steps to go from A to B.
It does not only describes steps 2 and 3, but also shows you how to accomplish them.
- Live example (on the blog): [Hosting on GitLab.com with GitLab Pages](https://about.gitlab.com/2016/04/07/gitlab-pages-setup/)
A **technical overview** is a description of what a certain feature is, and what it does, but does not walk
through the process of how to use it systematically.
- Live example (on the blog): [GitLab Workflow, an overview](https://about.gitlab.com/2016/10/25/gitlab-workflow-an-overview/)
#### Special format
Every **Technical Article** contains, in the very beginning, a blockquote with the following information:
- A reference to the **type of article** (user guide, admin guide, tech overview, tutorial)
- A reference to the **knowledge level** expected from the reader to be able to follow through (beginner, intermediate, advanced)
- A reference to the **author's name** and **GitLab.com handle**
