Technical Writing workflows

Technical Writing team workflows work in conjunction with the:

The process for creating and maintaining GitLab product documentation depends on whether the documentation is:

Documentation is required for a milestone when:

  • A new or enhanced feature is shipped that impacts the user or administrator experience.
  • There are changes to the user interface or API.
  • A process, workflow, or previously documented feature is changed.
  • A feature is deprecated or removed.

Documentation isn’t typically required when a backend feature is added or changed.

Documentation for a product change

Documentation is required for any new or changed feature, and is:

  • Created or updated as part of feature development, and is almost always in the same merge request as the feature code. Including documentation in the same merge request as the code eliminates the possibility that code and documentation get out-of-sync.
  • Required with the delivery of a feature for a specific milestone as part of the GitLab definition of done.
  • Linked from the release post.

Developer responsibilities

Developers are the primary authors of documentation for a feature or feature enhancement. They are responsible for:

  • Developing initial content required for a feature.
  • Liaising with their Product Manager to understand what documentation must be delivered, and when.
  • Requesting technical reviews from other developers within their group.
  • Requesting documentation reviews from the Technical Writer assigned to the DevOps stage group that is delivering the new feature or feature enhancements.

The first merge request where a feature can be tested should include the documentation, even if the feature is behind a feature flag. For details, see the guidelines.

The author of this MR, either a frontend or backend developer, should write the documentation.

Authoring

Because the documentation is an essential part of the product, if a ~"type::feature" issue also contains the ~documentation label, you must ship the new or updated documentation with the code of the feature.

Technical Writers are happy to help, as requested and planned on an issue-by-issue basis.

For feature issues requiring documentation, follow the process below unless otherwise agreed with the Product Manager and Technical Writer:

  • Include any new and edited documentation, either in:

    • The merge request introducing the code.
    • A separate merge request raised around the same time.

  • Use the documentation requirements developed by the Product Manager in the issue and discuss any further documentation plans or ideas as needed.

    If the new or changed documentation requires extensive collaboration or conversation, a separate, linked issue can be used for the planning process.

  • Use the Documentation guidelines, and other resources linked from there, including:

  • Contact the Technical Writer for the relevant DevOps stage in your issue or merge request, or in the #docs Slack channel, if you:

    • Need any help to choose the correct place for documentation.
    • Want to discuss a documentation idea or outline.
    • Want to request any other help.

  • If you are working on documentation in a separate merge request, ensure the documentation is merged as close as possible to the code merge.

  • If the feature has a feature flag, follow the policy for documenting feature-flagged issues.

Reviews and merging

Before merging, documentation changes committed by the developer must be reviewed by:

  • The code reviewer for the merge request. This is known as a technical review.
  • Optionally, others involved in the work such as other developers or the Product Manager.
  • The Technical Writer for the DevOps stage group, except in exceptional circumstances where a post-merge review can be requested.
  • A maintainer of the project.

Product Manager responsibilities

Product Managers are responsible for the documentation requirements for a feature or feature enhancement. They can also:

  • Connect with the Technical Writer for discussion and collaboration.
  • Review documentation themselves.

For issues requiring any new or updated documentation, the Product Manager must:

Everyone is encouraged to draft the documentation requirements in the issue. However, a Product Manager will:

  • When the issue is assigned a release milestone, review and update the Documentation details.
  • By the kickoff, finalize the documentation details.

Technical Writer responsibilities

Technical Writers are responsible for:

  • Participating in issue discussions and reviewing MRs for the upcoming milestone.
  • Reviewing documentation requirements in issues when called upon.
  • Answering questions, and helping and providing advice throughout the authoring and editing process.
  • Reviewing all significant new and updated documentation content, whether before merge or after it is merged, in accordance with review principles.
  • Assisting the developer and Product Manager with feature documentation delivery.
  • Ensuring that issues and MRs are labeled appropriately, and that doc content has the correct metadata.

Planning

The Technical Writer:

  • Reviews their group’s ~"type::feature" issues that are part of the next milestone to get a sense of the scope of content likely to be authored.
  • Recommends the ~documentation label on issues from that list which don’t have it but should, or inquires with the PM to determine if documentation is truly required.
  • For ~direction issues from that list, reads the full issue and reviews its Documentation requirements section. Addresses any recommendations or questions with the PMs and others collaborating on the issue in order to refine or expand the Documentation requirements.
  • Updates the Technical Writing milestone plan. Example, created from the issue template.
    • Add a link to the board or filter that shows the planned documentation and UI text work for the upcoming milestone.
    • Confirm that the group PM or EM is aware of the planned work.

Collaboration

By default, the developer will work on documentation changes independently, but the developer, Product Manager, or Technical Writer can propose a broader collaboration for any given issue.

Additionally, Technical Writers are available for questions at any time.

Review

Technical Writers:

  • Provide non-blocking reviews of all documentation changes, before or after the change is merged. Identified issues that would block or slow a change’s release are to be handled in linked, follow-up MRs.
  • Follow technical writing review principles.

Documentation requirements

Feature documentation requirements should be included as part of the issue for planning that feature in the Documentation section within the issue description. Issues created using the Feature Proposal template have this section by default.

Anyone can add these details, but the Product Manager who assigns the issue to a specific release milestone will ensure these details are present and finalized by the time of that milestone’s kickoff.

Developers, Technical Writers, and others may help further refine this plan at any time on request.

The following details should be included:

  • What concepts and procedures should the documentation guide and enable the user to understand or accomplish?
  • To this end, what new page(s) are needed, if any? What pages or subsections need updates? Consider changes and additions to user, admin, and API documentation.
  • For any guide or instruction set, should it help address a single use case, or be flexible to address a certain range of use cases?
  • Do we need to update a previously recommended workflow? Should we link the new feature from various relevant locations? Consider all ways documentation should be affected.
  • Are there any key terms or task descriptions that should be included so that the documentation is found in relevant searches?
  • Include suggested titles of any pages or subsection headings, if applicable.
  • List any documentation that should be cross-linked, if applicable.

Including documentation with code

Currently, the Technical Writing team strongly encourages including documentation in the same merge request as the code that it relates to, but this isn’t strictly mandatory. It’s still common for documentation to be added in an MR separate from the feature MR.

Engineering teams may elect to adopt a workflow where it is mandatory that documentation is included in the code MR, as part of their definition of done. When a team adopts this workflow, that team’s engineers must include their documentation in the same MR as their feature code, at all times.

Downsides of separate documentation MRs

A workflow that has documentation separated into its own MR has many downsides.

If the documentation merges before the feature:

  • GitLab.com users might try to use the feature before it’s released, driving support tickets.
  • If the feature is delayed, the documentation might not be pulled/reverted in time and could be accidentally included in the self-managed package for that release.

If the documentation merges after the feature:

  • The feature might be included in the self-managed package, but without any documentation if the documentation MR misses the cutoff.
  • A feature might show up in the GitLab.com user interface before any documentation exists for it. Users surprised by this feature will search for documentation and won’t find it, possibly driving support tickets.

Having two separate MRs means:

  • Two different people might be responsible for merging one feature, which isn’t workable with an asynchronous work style. The feature might merge while the Technical Writer is asleep, creating a potentially lengthy delay between the two merges.
  • If the documentation MR is assigned to the same maintainer as responsible for the feature code MR, they will have to review and juggle two MRs instead of dealing with just one.

Documentation quality might be lower, because:

  • Having documentation in a separate MR will mean far fewer people will see and verify them, increasing the likelihood that issues will be missed.
  • In a split workflow, engineers might only create the documentation MR after the feature MR is ready, or almost ready. This gives the Technical Writer little time to learn about the feature in order to do a good review. It also increases pressure on them to review and merge faster than desired, letting problems slip in due to haste.

Benefits of always including documentation with code

Including documentation with code (and doing it early in the development process) has many benefits:

  • There are no timing issues connected to releases:
    • If a feature slips to the next release, the documentation slips too.
    • If the feature just makes it into a release, the documentation just makes it in too.
    • If a feature makes it to GitLab.com early, the documentation will be ready for our early adopters.
  • Only a single person will be responsible for merging the feature (the code maintainer).
  • The Technical Writer will have more time to gain an understanding of the feature and will be better able to verify the content of the documentation in the Review App or GDK. They will also be able to offer advice for improving the user interface text or offer additional use cases.
  • The documentation will have increased visibility:
    • Everyone involved in the merge request can review the documentation. This could include product managers, multiple engineers with deep domain knowledge, the code reviewers, and the maintainer. They will be more likely to catch issues with examples, and background or concepts that the Technical Writer may not be aware of.
    • Increasing visibility of the documentation also has the side effect of improving other engineers’ documentation. By reviewing each other’s MRs, each engineer’s own documentation skills will improve.
  • Thinking about the documentation early can help engineers generate better examples, as they will need to think about what examples a user will want, and will need to ensure the code they write implements that example properly.

Documentation with code as a workflow

To have documentation included with code as a mandatory workflow, some changes might need to happen to a team’s current workflow:

  • The engineers must strive to include the documentation early in the development process, to give ample time for review, not just from the Technical Writer, but also the code reviewer and maintainer.
  • Reviewers and maintainers must also review the documentation during code reviews, to ensure the described processes match the expected use of the feature, and that examples are correct. They don’t need to worry about style, grammar, and so on.
  • The Technical Writer must be assigned as a reviewer on the MR directly and not only pinged. This can be done at any time, but must be before the code maintainer review. It’s common to have both the documentation and code reviews happening at the same time, with the author, reviewer and Technical Writer discussing the documentation together.
  • When the documentation is ready, the Technical Writer will click Approve and usually will no longer be involved in the MR. If the feature changes during code review and the documentation is updated, the Technical Writer must be reassigned the MR to verify the update.
  • Maintainers are allowed to merge features with the documentation as-is, even if the Technical Writer hasn’t given final approval yet. The documentation reviews must not be blockers. Therefore, it’s important to get the documentation included and assigned to the Technical Writers early. If the feature is merged before final documentation approval, the maintainer must create a post-merge follow-up issue, and assign it to both the engineer and Technical Writer.

You can visualize the parallel workflow for code and documentation reviews as:

graph TD
  A("Feature MR Created (Engineer)") --> |Assign| B("Code Review (reviewer)")
  B --> |"Approve / Reassign"| C("Code Review (maintainer)")
  C --> |Approve| F("Merge (maintainer)")
  A --> D("Docs Added (Engineer)")
  D --> |Assign| E("Docs Review (Tech Writer)")
  E --> |Approve| F

For complex features split over multiple merge requests:

  • If a merge request is implementing components for a future feature, but the components aren’t accessible to users yet, then no documentation should be included.
  • If a merge request will expose a feature to users in any way, such as an enabled user interface element, an API endpoint, or anything similar, then that MR must have documentation. Note that this may mean multiple documentation additions could happen in the buildup to the implementation of a single large feature, for example API documentation and feature usage documentation.
  • If it’s unclear which engineer should add the feature documentation into their MR, the engineering manager should decide during planning, and tie the documentation to the last MR that must be merged before a feature is considered released. This is often, but not always, a frontend MR.

UI text

Planning and authoring

A Product Designer should consult with the Technical Writer for their stage group when planning to add or change substantial text within the UI, such as a phrase of explanatory microcopy or a link to documentation.

The Technical Writer can offer an initial review of any ideas, plans, or actual text, and can be asked to draft text when provided with information on the context and goals of the text. Context may include detail on the scenarios in which the text would appear (for example, to all users viewing the feature or only under certain conditions), and the information to convey, which typically answers one or more of the questions:

  • What does this do?
  • How do I use it?
  • Why should I care?

Consider tagging the Technical Writer once in a review request with a message indicating the number of points and/or the areas where reviews are needed. This will help manage the volume of notifications per review round.

MR Reviews

Once the merge request is created, all changes and additions to text in the UI must be reviewed by the Technical Writer in accordance with review principles.

These may include: labels (buttons, menus, column headers, UI sections) or any phrases that may be displayed within the UI, such as user-assistance microcopy or error messages.

Additional information about composing and reviewing UI text:

Release posts

The Technical Writer for each stage group is a reviewer of their group’s feature blocks (also known as release post items) authored by the Product Manager.

For each release, a single Technical Writer is also assigned as the Technical Writing Lead to perform the Structural Check and other duties.

Monthly documentation releases

When a new GitLab version is released, the Technical Writing team releases version-specific published documentation.

Documentation feedback and improvements

To make a documentation change that is not associated with a specific code change, the Technical Writing team encourages contributors to start with an MR and follow the documentation update procedures.

If you do start with an issue rather than an MR, use the Documentation template. Labels should include:

  • documentation
  • type::maintenance
  • maintenance::refactor
  • docs-only
  • Stage name
  • Group name

Also include:

  • Milestone: Backlog until the work is scheduled for a milestone.
  • Assignee: None until the work is scheduled for a milestone. In the issue description or comments, mention (@username) the Technical Writer assigned to the group for awareness.
  • Description: starts with Docs: or Docs feedback:
  • A task checklist or next step to deliver an MVC. For more information, see Issue state.
  • Labels:

If an issue requires input from the development team before a Technical Writer can start work, it should follow the stage and group’s issue lifecycle. For an example of an issue lifecycle, take a look at Plan Stage Issues.

Review and triage docs-only backlog issues

Routine review and triage of documentation feedback and improvement issues for your groups helps us spend the time we have on actionable issues that improve the user experience.

Prerequisites

  • An issue triage board for each group that you are the assigned technical writer for. If you don’t have an issue triage board for your group, set one up called Docs only backlog triage - group name. See an example board for the Project Management group.
    • The filter criteria should include Label=documentation, Label=group::groupname, Label!=type::feature, Label!=type:bug.
    • In Edit board, make sure Show the Open list is selected.
    • On the issue board, select Create list, and set Label to tw:triaged.

To review and triage documentation feedback and improvement issues for your groups:

  1. Once a month, on the issue triage boards for your groups, check the Open list for new issues.
  2. Apply the labels described in Documentation feedback and improvements.
  3. Aim to keep the list of open, untriaged issues at <10.
  4. Share the triaged list with the group and group PM.

Stage leads

Some Technical Writers are assigned as stage leads for a given DevOps stage.

Stage leads might work across an entire stage, or a subset of groups in the stage. They support other Technical Writers assigned to groups in the stage.

Stage leads:

  • Assume the same responsibilities as Technical Writers, but with a more targeted focus on proactively creating and improving documentation for their assigned stage.
  • Spend approximately 30% of their time on issues and merge requests reviews authored by developers for new features and enhancements for their assigned groups.
  • Spend the remainder of their time:
    • Creating and refining content to address documentation needs and gaps for their assigned stage. For example, writing tutorials and use case-based content, restructuring existing content, working on the information architecture, and so on.
    • Supporting other writers in the stage to contribute to documentation improvements.
  • Create a quarterly planning issue to outline the content gaps and improvements that they aim to address over three milestones, for example, FY25Q3 Stage lead planning issue: Secure.
  • Collaborate with other stage leads on documentation improvements.

For documentation improvements, stage leads are responsible for creating an issue board to track ongoing and planned documentation enhancements and additions.

Topic types and team progress

The Technical Writing team is always working to improve the quality of the documentation. Specifically, we are working to implement topic types.

We are currently tracking updates to the Use GitLab section of the global navigation.

Date # of pages done # of pages total Percent complete
September 2023 259 658 39 %
October 2022 245 468 52 %
April 2022 161 420 38 %

Hackathons

The Technical Writing team takes part in the GitLab Hackathon and sometimes hosts a docs-only Docs Hackathon.

Create issues for a Hackathon

We often create documentation issues for a Hackathon. These issues are typically based on results found when you run Vale against the documentation.

  1. Run Vale against the full docset. Go to the GitLab repo and run: find doc -name '*.md' | sort | xargs vale --minAlertLevel suggestion --output line > ../results.txt

  2. Create issues. You have a few options:

    • Use a script to create one issue for each markdown file listed in the Vale results. This script uses the Doc cleanup issue template.
    • Create issues one at a time by using the Doc cleanup issue template.
    • Create issues in bulk by using the Issues API.

Ensure that the labels assigned to the issues match those in the Doc cleanup issue template.

Assign an issue to a community contributor

To assign an issue to a community contributor:

  1. Remove the Seeking community contributions label.
  2. Assign the user by typing /assign @username in a comment, where @username is the contributor’s handle.
  3. Mention the user in a comment, telling them the issue is now assigned to them.

Try to limit each contributor to no more than three issues at a time. You can assign another issue as soon as they’ve opened an MR for one of the issues they’re already assigned.

Review Hackathon merge requests

When a community contributor opens a Hackathon merge request:

  1. View the related issue. Ensure the user who authored the MR is the same user who asked to be assigned to the issue.

    • If the user is not listed in the issue, and another user has asked to work on the issue, do not merge the MR. Ask the MR author to find an issue that has not already been assigned or point them to this page.

  2. Work to merge the merge request.

  3. When you merge, ensure you close the related issue.

Labels

When working with issues or merge requests, the Technical Writing team uses labels to describe those issues’ and merge requests’ attributes (including the types of work being done).

This information about labels supplements the Issues workflow page and the steps for documentation feedback and improvements.

Usage

Any issue or merge request for which a Technical Writer provides a measurable amount of work on (including content creation and reviews) must include the Technical Writing label.

To further classify the type of effort, include one or more of the following labels:

There are a number of other documentation-related labels, such as vale and docs-channel. These labels are optional.

Type labels

All issues and merge requests must be classified into one of three work types: Bug, Feature, or Maintenance. Add one of the following labels to an issue or merge request:

  • type::feature
  • type::bug
  • type::maintenance

For more information, see Work Type Classification.

The majority of documentation work uses the type::maintenance label. You must also apply one these subtype labels to further classify the type of maintenance work:

  • maintenance::refactor: Edits and improvements of existing documentation.
  • maintenance::workflow: Documentation changes that are not visible to readers, like linting and tooling updates, and metadata changes.

For example, if you open a merge request to refactor a page for CTRT, apply the type::maintenance and maintenance::refactor labels. If you open a merge request to modify the metadata, apply the type::maintenance and maintenance::workflow labels.

Workflow labels

To better communicate work status, the Technical Writers use the following labels to describe issues’ statuses:

  • tw::doing
  • tw::finished

Note that these are team workflow labels. The Technical Writer who is doing writing work will usually be the person adding the tw::doing label, and the Technical Writer doing the review will usually be changing it to the tw::finished label (although external content submissions could have the same Technical Writer using both the tw::doing and tw::finished labels as part of their content review).

The labels are used as follows:

  1. An issue or MR is marked with the Technical Writing label, as usual.
  2. When a Technical Writer starts working on the issue/MR, they add the tw::doing label. In this case, work is everything that’s required to finish the content, from creation through review. If a writer involved in the process stops working on the unfinished issue/MR, they remove the tw::doing label (at least at the point of one work week of inactivity). Whenever work is restarted, the tw::doing label is restored.
  3. When work is complete on the issue/MR, a Technical Writer (normally the reviewer) adds the tw::finished label.
  4. The issue/MR makes its way to Closed or Merged in the usual manner.

Note that the tw::finished label is for indicating when a Technical Writer is done with an issue/MR for which we’re not doing the merge or closing the issue. If the Technical Writing team is doing the merging/closing, the issue/MR status overrides the scoped tw label status, and there’s no need to use the tw::finished label.

If a Technical Writer is presented with an open issue or MR with a tw::finished label that has more work required for it, the writer should re-add the tw::doing scoped label to the issue/MR, and then continue with the normal workflow process.

Last modified December 13, 2024: Remove trailing spaces (a4c83fb3)
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