Handbook Direction

Overview

The GitLab Handbook is the single source of truth for how we operate at GitLab, including processes, policies, and product direction. In keeping with our value of transparency, the GitLab Handbook is entirely open to the world. We welcome feedback from the community and hope that it serves as inspiration for other current or future companies. The GitLab Handbook is also an incredible talent acquisition tool, providing candidates with valuable insight into how GitLab runs as a company.

A sub-section of the handbook.gitlab.com website, the GitLab Handbook specifically refers to content that is in the /handbook/ namespace of the website. The overall user experience and architecture of the GitLab Handbook is a shared responsibility. Feedback and questions can be directed to the #handbook Slack channel.

Target Audience

GitLab Team Members: Every GitLab team member is responsible for using and updating our handbook. It is the central repository for process documentation and product direction.

Leadership: GitLab leadership uses the handbook like any other member of the team, but additionally needs to reference the content during presentations to stakeholders or investors. Since everything we do is open to the public, members of leadership teams outside of GitLab may also use the GitLab Handbook as reference or inspiration for their own team processes and policies.

Potential Applicants: Candidates for job opportunities at GitLab use the handbook to learn more about expectations for the role, compensation and benefits, GitLab’s company values, and other policies. GitLab team members also use the handbook extensively to share specific, relevant information with potential applicants, making it a powerful talent acquisition tool in itself.

Current and Potential Users: GitLab’s product direction, strategy, and vision are documented in the handbook alongside our product and engineering processes. This allows current users a glimpse into GitLab’s future priorities and can help potential users make an informed decision related to adopting GitLab as a tool.

Where we are Headed

At GitLab, we encourage everyone to work handbook first in order to promote asynchronous collaboration and documentation. Working this way has its challenges, not the least of which is the time and effort involved in making a change. While this extra investment can encourage contributors to be more considered and deliberate with their changes, at a certain point it discourages meaningful collaboration and works against our goals.

Our hope is that the GitLab Handbook is something that others want to emulate. To facilitate that, we want to ensure that any user can easily use and update the handbook. Ideally, the handbook has:

• Organized, and up-to-date content
• Fast, predictable deployments
• A clean, scalable information architecture and modern codebase

What’s Next & Why

In the short term, we want to make sure the handbook is fast and stable. We also need a long term plan.

As there is no full time DRI, the following are on hold:

• Improved reading and sharing experience: The content needs to remain the primary focus but it should be easier to search, navigate, and share the content.
• Freshness tools: To ensure that content is relevant, up-to-date, not duplicative, and to give readers the tools they need to flag content that doesn’t meet those criteria.
• Other Issues: Handbook issues

What is Not Planned Right Now

We are not currently investigating a transition to a separate, external content management system or publishing platform.

The needs of the GitLab Handbook have outgrown what can be handled in a wiki (or similar) product, so we are not planning to migrate any content into that format.

Since the content is changing quite literally every day, we are not looking to generate a digital or printed book from the GitLab Handbook content.

The GitLab Handbook is not currently optimized for serving as a searchable Knowledge Base or FAQ repository similar to what you would find on Quora or Stack Overflow.