documentation

Documentation

Overview

Documentation as a first-class engineering artifact. Good docs reduce onboarding time, support tickets, and cognitive load.

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Documentation Types

Type	Audience	Purpose	Update Frequency
README	New developers	Quick start	Per major change
API Docs	API consumers	Reference	Per API change
Architecture	Team	Design decisions	Per design change
Runbooks	Operations	Incident response	Per incident
Tutorials	Users	Learning	Periodically

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README Best Practices

Structure

# Project Name

> One-line description of what this project does.

[![Build Status](badge)](link)
[![Coverage](badge)](link)
[![License](badge)](link)

## Features

- Feature 1: Brief description
- Feature 2: Brief description
- Feature 3: Brief description

## Quick Start

```bash
# Install
npm install my-project

# Configure
export API_KEY=your-key

# Run
npx my-project start

Installation

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18+
• PostgreSQL 15+

Steps

1. Clone the repository
2. Install dependencies: npm install
3. Copy .env.example to .env
4. Run migrations: npm run db:migrate
5. Start the server: npm start

Usage

Basic Example

import { Client } from 'my-project';

const client = new Client({ apiKey: 'xxx' });
const result = await client.doSomething();

Advanced Configuration

[Link to detailed docs]

API Reference

[Link to API docs]

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md

License

MIT - see LICENSE

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## API Documentation

### OpenAPI/Swagger

```yaml
openapi: 3.0.3
info:
  title: User API
  description: |
    API for managing users.

    ## Authentication
    All endpoints require Bearer token authentication.

    ## Rate Limiting
    - 100 requests per minute per API key
    - 429 response when exceeded
  version: 1.0.0

servers:
  - url: https://api.example.com/v1
    description: Production
  - url: https://staging-api.example.com/v1
    description: Staging

paths:
  /users:
    get:
      summary: List users
      description: Returns a paginated list of users.
      operationId: listUsers
      tags:
        - Users
      parameters:
        - name: limit
          in: query
          description: Maximum number of users to return
          schema:
            type: integer
            default: 20
            maximum: 100
        - name: cursor
          in: query
          description: Pagination cursor from previous response
          schema:
            type: string
      responses:
        '200':
          description: Successful response
          content:
            application/json:
              schema:
                $ref: '#/components/schemas/UserList'
              example:
                data:
                  - id: "usr_123"
                    email: "[email protected]"
                    name: "John Doe"
                meta:
                  hasMore: true
                  nextCursor: "eyJpZCI6MTIzfQ"
        '401':
          $ref: '#/components/responses/Unauthorized'

components:
  schemas:
    User:
      type: object
      required:
        - id
        - email
      properties:
        id:
          type: string
          description: Unique identifier
          example: "usr_123"
        email:
          type: string
          format: email
          description: User's email address
        name:
          type: string
          description: User's display name

  responses:
    Unauthorized:
      description: Authentication required
      content:
        application/json:
          schema:
            type: object
            properties:
              error:
                type: string
                example: "Invalid or missing API key"