Documentation Glossary

Browse 68 documentation terms defined in plain English, from the cultural dictionary of computing.

68 Documentation Terms

ADR
ADR, or Architecture Decision Record, is a lightweight document that captures an important architectural decision along with its context, the options...
AI Model Card
A documentation artifact describing a model's purpose, data, metrics, limitations, and intended use. It influences how models are trained, evaluated, or...
API Documentation
Written reference material describing how to use an API, including endpoints, parameters, authentication, examples, response formats, and error behavior....
Architecture Diagram
A visual representation of a system's major components, data flows, boundaries, and dependencies. Good architecture diagrams make relationships and trust...
Architecture Document
A written description of a system's structure, goals, constraints, major components, and rationale for key design choices. Architecture documents provide...
Changelog
A file documenting all notable changes to a project, organized by version. The responsible developer's diary. 'Keep a Changelog' (keepachangelog.com) is the...
Change Log
A record of changes made over time to a product, codebase, document, or system. In culture and practice, change logs are part documentation, part trust signal,...
Changelog Convention
A consistent format or standard for recording user-visible changes across releases so upgrades are easier to understand and communicate. Changelog conventions...
Changelog Culture
A team habit of documenting and communicating changes consistently through release notes, internal updates, and visible records. Changelog culture matters...
Code Book
A book about programming, source code, or software practice, or in some contexts a collection of coding standards and conventions. In developer culture code...
Code Comment
Non-executable text embedded in source code to explain intent, assumptions, constraints, or tricky behavior to future readers. Good code comments clarify why...
Code Documentation
Written material that explains code behavior, APIs, assumptions, or usage, whether embedded in the source or maintained separately. Good code documentation...
Code Documentation Culture
A team's shared attitude and habits around documenting code, systems, decisions, and operational knowledge. Good code documentation culture means documentation...
Code Sample
A short example of code intended to demonstrate usage, patterns, or correct integration with a library, API, or feature. Good code samples are realistic enough...
Code Tour
A guided walkthrough of important parts of a codebase, often structured as a sequence of files, notes, and context that helps someone understand how the system...
Comment Block
A multi-line comment structure used to document code, disable sections temporarily, or provide descriptive text that spans more than a single line. Comment...
Contribution Guidelines
Documentation explaining how people should contribute to a project, including code style, workflow, review process, issue etiquette, and testing expectations....
Contributor Guide
Documentation that explains how to contribute to a project, including setup, coding standards, testing, review workflow, issue etiquette, and communication...
Developer Documentation
Documentation written to help developers understand, use, build on, or contribute to a tool, API, platform, or codebase. In culture, strong developer...
Documentation
Written material that explains systems, decisions, processes, or how to use something. In tech culture documentation is one of the clearest signals of whether...
Documentation Debt
The accumulated cost of missing, outdated, or misleading documentation that makes systems harder to use, debug, or change. Documentation debt compounds quietly...
Documentation First
An approach that emphasizes writing or updating documentation early, sometimes before implementation, so assumptions and interfaces are clarified before code...
Documentation Standard
A defined standard for how documentation should be structured, written, versioned, or maintained across a project or ecosystem. Documentation standards help...
FAQ Culture
A culture where common questions are documented and reused systematically instead of answered from scratch every time. Strong FAQ culture reduces repetitive...
Field Guide
A practical guide organized for real-world use rather than exhaustive theory, often meant to be consulted in the field or during actual work. In tech culture...
Godoc
The traditional Go documentation tooling and format used to generate readable docs from source code comments and package structure. In Go culture, godoc...
Guideline
A recommended rule or principle that helps shape decisions and behavior without necessarily functioning as a rigid law in every case. In culture, good...
Incident Report
A formal record describing a security incident, including what happened, when it was detected, affected assets, actions taken, and current status or findings....
Javadoc
The Java documentation system that extracts specially formatted source comments and generates reference docs for classes, methods, parameters, and packages....
Knowledge Base
A centralized repository of structured information — articles, FAQs, and how-to guides — used for self-service support or internal documentation.
Knowledge Sharing
The practice of making expertise, decisions, and operational context available across a team through docs, walkthroughs, pairing, demos, or review. Strong...
Living Document
A document expected to be updated continuously as reality changes rather than treated as a one-time artifact. In engineering slang, calling something a living...
Manpage
A manual page — the built-in documentation system on Unix-like systems, accessed via the 'man' command. The first and last resort for Unix questions, if you...
Man Page
Short for manual page, a command-line help document on Unix-like systems that describes a program, API, or system interface, usually accessed with the `man`...
Markdown
Markdown is a lightweight markup language created by John Gruber in 2004 that uses plain text formatting syntax to create structured documents that can be...
Model Card
A standardized document describing a machine learning model's intended use, training data, performance metrics, limitations, and ethical considerations....
Onboarding
The process of getting new employees, users, or contributors up to speed with the tools, context, permissions, workflows, and expectations they need to...
Open API
A specification for describing REST APIs in a standard, machine-readable format (formerly known as Swagger). Enables automatic documentation generation, client...
OpenAPI Specification
A language-agnostic standard for describing REST APIs in YAML or JSON format -- endpoints, parameters, request/response schemas, authentication, and examples....
Package Readme
The README content associated with a package, typically covering purpose, installation, usage, and contribution basics. In open-source culture, the package...
Project Docs
The documentation associated with a project, including setup, usage, architecture, contribution guidance, and release information. In software culture, project...
Project Readme
The README file for a project, usually the first entry point for understanding what it does, how to install it, and how to contribute. In open-source culture,...
PR Template
A template shown when opening a pull request, usually prompting authors for context, testing notes, screenshots, rollout details, or linked issues. In good...
README
README is a text file included in a software project that provides essential information about the project: what it does, how to install and use it, how to...
README Convention
The common expectation that a project’s top-level README should quickly explain what the project is, how to install it, how to use it, and where to go next....
Readme Driven Development
A practice of writing the README or top-level documentation for a tool, library, or product before or during implementation so the intended interface and user...
Release Notes
Documentation published with a release that explains what changed, what was fixed, what broke, and what users should know before upgrading. Good release notes...
Report
A structured document or output summarizing findings, status, evidence, or risk from a security assessment, incident, audit, or monitoring activity. In...
RFC
Request for Comments — a formal document published by the IETF or used internally by engineering teams to propose, discuss, and document technical standards,...
Risk Statement
A concise written description of a risk that explains the condition, the potential event, and the likely impact if it occurs. Strong risk statements are...
RTFM
Read The F***ing Manual — the universal, exasperated reply to a question that is clearly answered in the documentation. An enduring artifact of hacker...
runbook
A documented set of step-by-step procedures for handling specific operational scenarios, from routine maintenance tasks to incident response. Runbooks reduce...
Runbook
A documented set of step-by-step procedures for handling specific operational tasks or incidents. Good runbooks include the alert that triggers them,...
Run Book Security
The protection of operational runbooks so sensitive procedures, credentials, escalation paths, or infrastructure details are available to the right people...
Swagger
The original name (now OpenAPI) for a specification and toolset for describing RESTful APIs in a machine-readable format, enabling auto-generated...
System Card
A document that describes an AI system's purpose, capabilities, limitations, risks, and evaluation results so stakeholders can understand how it should be...
Technical Specification
A document written before implementation that describes the problem, proposed solution, architecture, API contracts, data models, alternatives considered, and...
Technical Writer
A professional who creates documentation, tutorials, and reference guides for technical products. One of the most undervalued roles in tech — everyone...
Technical Writing
The discipline of creating clear, accurate, user-centered documentation for technical products — API docs, tutorials, reference guides, runbooks, and...
Technical Writing Culture
An environment where clear technical writing is expected and valued for docs, design proposals, runbooks, tutorials, and internal decisions. Strong technical...
Test Plan
A document that specifies the scope, approach, resources, schedule, and pass/fail criteria for testing a particular feature or release, serving as the contract...
Tribal Knowledge
Knowledge that exists primarily in people’s heads rather than in accessible documentation, automation, or shared processes. It makes systems and teams fragile...
Tribal Knowledge Slang
Informal use of tribal knowledge for information that exists mainly in people's heads and informal habits rather than durable documentation. In engineering...
Type Hints
Optional type annotations in Python (PEP 484) that indicate expected types for function parameters, return values, and variables. Not enforced at runtime but...
Type Signature
The declared types of a function's parameters and return value, expressing the contract of what goes in and what comes out — such as `(string, number) =>...
UML
Unified Modeling Language — a standardized family of graphical notations for visualizing software design, including class diagrams, sequence diagrams, state...
Wiki
A collaboratively editable website or knowledge base where users can create, revise, and link pages over time. In engineering organizations, wikis often serve...
Write the Docs
A well-known community and conference series centered on documentation, technical writing, and docs tooling. In tech culture, the name signals serious...

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