Docs update documentation guidelines
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Marcia Ramos
🚄 Job van der Voort 🚀
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@ -81,10 +81,9 @@ comments: false
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## Documentation guides
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- [Documentation styleguide](doc_styleguide.md): Use this styleguide if you are
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contributing to the documentation.
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- [Writing documentation](writing_documentation.md)
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- [Distinction between general documentation and technical articles](writing_documentation.md#distinction-between-general-documentation-and-technical-articles)
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- [Documentation styleguide](doc_styleguide.md)
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- [Markdown](../user/markdown.md)
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## Internationalization (i18n) guides
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@ -1,75 +1,14 @@
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# Writing documentation
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- **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.
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- **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/).
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- **[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/).
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- **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).
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## Distinction between General Documentation and Technical Articles
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### General documentation
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General documentation is categorized by _User_, _Admin_, and _Contributor_, and describe what that feature is, what it does, and its available settings.
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### Technical Articles
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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.
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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.
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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.
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They live under `doc/articles/article-title/index.md`, and their images should be placed under `doc/articles/article-title/img/`. Find a list of existing [technical articles](../articles/index.md) here.
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#### Types of Technical Articles
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- **User guides**: technical content to guide regular users from point A to point B
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- **Admin guides**: technical content to guide administrators of GitLab instances from point A to point B
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- **Technical Overviews**: technical content describing features, solutions, and third-party integrations
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- **Tutorials**: technical content provided step-by-step on how to do things, or how to reach very specific objectives
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#### Understanding guides, tutorials, and technical overviews
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Suppose there's a process to go from point A to point B in 5 steps: `(A) 1 > 2 > 3 > 4 > 5 (B)`.
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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.
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- 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)"
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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.
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It does not only describes steps 2 and 3, but also shows you how to accomplish them.
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- Live example (on the blog): [Hosting on GitLab.com with GitLab Pages](https://about.gitlab.com/2016/04/07/gitlab-pages-setup/)
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A **technical overview** is a description of what a certain feature is, and what it does, but does not walk
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through the process of how to use it systematically.
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- Live example (on the blog): [GitLab Workflow, an overview](https://about.gitlab.com/2016/10/25/gitlab-workflow-an-overview/)
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#### Special format
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Every **Technical Article** contains, in the very beginning, a blockquote with the following information:
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- A reference to the **type of article** (user guide, admin guide, tech overview, tutorial)
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- A reference to the **knowledge level** expected from the reader to be able to follow through (beginner, intermediate, advanced)
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- A reference to the **author's name** and **GitLab.com handle**
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- A reference of the **publication date**
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```md
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> **Article [Type](../../development/writing_documentation.html#types-of-technical-articles):** tutorial ||
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> **Level:** intermediary ||
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> **Author:** [Name Surname](https://gitlab.com/username) ||
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> **Publication date:** AAAA/MM/DD
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```
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#### Technical Articles - Writing Method
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Use the [writing method](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/product/technical-writing/#writing-method) defined by the Technical Writing team.
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## Documentation style guidelines
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All the docs follow the same [styleguide](doc_styleguide.md).
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### Contributing to docs
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## Contributing to docs
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Whenever a feature is changed, updated, introduced, or deprecated, the merge
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request introducing these changes must be accompanied by the documentation
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@ -118,13 +57,31 @@ and for every **major** feature present in Community Edition.
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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.
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## Testing
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### Previewing locally
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We try to treat documentation as code, thus have implemented some testing.
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To preview your changes to documentation locally, please follow
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this [development guide](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/gitlab-docs/blob/master/README.md#development).
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### Testing
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We treat documentation as code, thus have implemented some testing.
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Currently, the following tests are in place:
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1. `docs lint`: Check that all internal (relative) links work correctly and
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that all cURL examples in API docs use the full switches.
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that all cURL examples in API docs use the full switches. It's recommended
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to [check locally](#previewing-locally) before pushing to GitLab by executing the command
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`bundle exec nanoc check internal_links` on your local
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[`gitlab-docs`](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/gitlab-docs) directory.
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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):
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When you submit a merge request to GitLab Community Edition (CE),
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there is this additional job that runs against Enterprise Edition (EE)
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and checks if your changes can apply cleanly to the EE codebase.
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If that job fails, read the instructions in the job log for what to do next.
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As CE is merged into EE once a day, it's important to avoid merge conflicts.
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Submitting an EE-equivalent merge request cherry-picking all commits from CE to EE is
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essential to avoid them.
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### Branch naming
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If your contribution contains **only** documentation changes, you can speed up
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the CI process by following some branch naming conventions. You have three
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@ -139,17 +96,7 @@ choices:
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If your branch name matches any of the above, it will run only the docs
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tests. If it doesn't, the whole test suite will run (including docs).
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---
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When you submit a merge request to GitLab Community Edition (CE), there is an
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additional job called `ee_compat_check` that runs against Enterprise
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Edition (EE) and checks if your changes can apply cleanly to the EE codebase.
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If that job fails, read the instructions in the job log for what to do next.
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Contributors do not need to submit their changes to EE, GitLab Inc. employees
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on the other hand need to make sure that their changes apply cleanly to both
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CE and EE.
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## Previewing the changes live
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### Previewing the changes live
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If you want to preview the doc changes of your merge request live, you can use
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the manual `review-docs-deploy` job in your merge request. You will need at
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@ -164,7 +111,7 @@ You will need to push a branch to those repositories, it doesn't work for forks.
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TIP: **Tip:**
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If your branch contains only documentation changes, you can use
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[special branch names](#testing) to avoid long running pipelines.
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[special branch names](#branch-naming) to avoid long running pipelines.
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In the mini pipeline graph, you should see an `>>` icon. Clicking on it will
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reveal the `review-docs-deploy` job. Hit the play button for the job to start.
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@ -209,12 +156,12 @@ working on. If you don't, the remote docs branch won't be removed either,
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and the server where the Review Apps are hosted will eventually be out of
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disk space.
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### Behind the scenes
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#### Technical aspects
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If you want to know the hot details, here's what's really happening:
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1. You manually run the `review-docs-deploy` job in a CE/EE merge request.
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1. The job runs the [`scirpts/trigger-build-docs`](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/blob/master/scripts/trigger-build-docs)
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1. The job runs the [`scripts/trigger-build-docs`](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/blob/master/scripts/trigger-build-docs)
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script with the `deploy` flag, which in turn:
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1. Takes your branch name and applies the following:
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- The slug of the branch name is used to avoid special characters since
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@ -243,3 +190,65 @@ The following GitLab features are used among others:
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- [Review Apps](../ci/review_apps/index.md)
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- [Artifacts](../ci/yaml/README.md#artifacts)
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- [Specific Runner](../ci/runners/README.md#locking-a-specific-runner-from-being-enabled-for-other-projects)
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## General Documentation vs Technical Articles
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### General documentation
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General documentation is categorized by _User_, _Admin_, and _Contributor_, and describe what that feature is, what it does, and its available settings.
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### Technical Articles
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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/`.
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#### Types of Technical Articles
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- **User guides**: technical content to guide regular users from point A to point B
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- **Admin guides**: technical content to guide administrators of GitLab instances from point A to point B
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- **Technical Overviews**: technical content describing features, solutions, and third-party integrations
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- **Tutorials**: technical content provided step-by-step on how to do things, or how to reach very specific objectives
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#### Understanding guides, tutorials, and technical overviews
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Suppose there's a process to go from point A to point B in 5 steps: `(A) 1 > 2 > 3 > 4 > 5 (B)`.
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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.
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- 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)"
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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.
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It does not only describes steps 2 and 3, but also shows you how to accomplish them.
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- Live example (on the blog): [Hosting on GitLab.com with GitLab Pages](https://about.gitlab.com/2016/04/07/gitlab-pages-setup/)
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A **technical overview** is a description of what a certain feature is, and what it does, but does not walk
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through the process of how to use it systematically.
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- Live example (on the blog): [GitLab Workflow, an overview](https://about.gitlab.com/2016/10/25/gitlab-workflow-an-overview/)
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#### Special format
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Every **Technical Article** contains, in the very beginning, a blockquote with the following information:
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- A reference to the **type of article** (user guide, admin guide, tech overview, tutorial)
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- A reference to the **knowledge level** expected from the reader to be able to follow through (beginner, intermediate, advanced)
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- A reference to the **author's name** and **GitLab.com handle**
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- A reference of the **publication date**
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```md
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> **[Article Type](../../development/writing_documentation.html#types-of-technical-articles):** tutorial ||
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> **Level:** intermediary ||
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> **Author:** [Name Surname](https://gitlab.com/username) ||
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> **Publication date:** AAAA-MM-DD
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```
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#### Technical Articles - Writing Method
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Use the [writing method](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/product/technical-writing/#writing-method) defined by the Technical Writing team.
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