Skip to content

Strengthen Standard Base Documentation from community talk#908

Open
rrrutledge wants to merge 2 commits into
InnerSourceCommons:mainfrom
rrrutledge:enhance-base-documentation-from-talk
Open

Strengthen Standard Base Documentation from community talk#908
rrrutledge wants to merge 2 commits into
InnerSourceCommons:mainfrom
rrrutledge:enhance-base-documentation-from-talk

Conversation

@rrrutledge
Copy link
Copy Markdown
Contributor

Summary

Three structural improvements to the Standard Base Documentation pattern, plus a new Known Instance citation. Informed by Fiji "FJ"'s community talk Docs that Invite Devs (YouTube), which articulates why InnerSource docs frequently fail to convert readers into contributors.

Changes

  • New ARCHITECTURE.md section in the Solution as a contributor-facing system map. Distinct from Document Architecture Decisions (ADRs): ADRs capture decisions over time, whereas ARCHITECTURE.md is a current-state map that lets contributors tell which parts of the system are safe to touch.
  • New "How to know your docs are working" check — a usability acceptance criterion listing the five questions a newcomer should be able to answer from a quick scan: what is this, where do I start, how does it work, where do I contribute, what happens next?
  • Sharper Getting Started guidance in README-template.md: copy-pasteable steps, expected outputs per step, and a troubleshooting subsection. Replaces the previous one-line description.
  • New entry under Known Instances citing the talk, labeled as "Community talk" so it is clearly distinct from the existing organizational adoptions (Europace, Paypal, Mercado Libre, Analog Devices, Airbus, Siemens).

Why now

The talk surfaces real gaps the existing pattern doesn't yet cover — particularly contributor-facing architectural orientation and an explicit usability check. Edits were kept surgical so they extend rather than reframe the pattern.

Test plan

  • Review the rendered base-documentation.md for prose flow and cross-link correctness (the new ARCHITECTURE.md section links to Document Architecture Decisions).
  • Confirm the new "Community talk" Known Instance entry reads correctly alongside the organizational entries.
  • Confirm the README template's revised Getting Started section reads as actionable guidance for newcomers.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

Adds three structural improvements to the Standard Base Documentation
pattern, informed by Fiji "FJ"'s talk "Docs that Invite Devs":

- New ARCHITECTURE.md section as a contributor-facing system map,
  distinct from Document Architecture Decisions (ADRs). Addresses
  the contributor hesitation of not knowing what is safe to touch.
- New "How to know your docs are working" check, listing the five
  questions a newcomer should be able to answer from a quick scan.
- Sharper Getting Started guidance in the README template:
  copy-pasteable steps, expected outputs, and a troubleshooting
  subsection.

Also adds the talk under Known Instances, labeled as a community
talk to distinguish it from the existing organizational adoptions.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <[email protected]>
Replace placeholder "Community talk" entry with the speaker's full
name (Feyijimi "FJ" Erinle) and organization (Agentic Systems),
matching the format of the existing organizational Known Instances.
Speaker affiliation was obtained from the YouTube video description.
Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment

Labels

None yet

Projects

None yet

Development

Successfully merging this pull request may close these issues.

1 participant