When documentation is outdated, it’s worse than no documentation at all. Why? Because people trust it, and they act on that trust. If your docs say one thing but your code does another, you’re setting everyone up for failure.
Imagine your documentation says an API endpoint accepts POST requests with JSON payloads, but in reality, the code has switched to PATCH requests. Anyone following the docs will start building with the wrong method. They’ll send the POST request and get a 405 error, confused why their payload isn’t being accepted.
Have Outdated Docs? Prioritize Fixing the Real Pain Points
When you start cleaning up outdated documentation, start with the issues engineers ask about most. You’ll likely have dozens (if not hundreds) of places where the docs are incomplete or wrong. Trying to fix everything at once is a recipe for burnout.
Here’s what worked for me: send out a quick survey or comb through Slack channels. Look for recurring questions: “How does this service handle time zones?” or “What’s the recommended way to authenticate users?” Focus on the top five to ten topics causing the most confusion and clean those up first.
How to Make Updating Docs Part of the Culture
Getting documentation right can’t be a one-off project. It has to be part of the process and part of the culture. Treat documentation as part of the definition of done—no pull request gets merged without the relevant docs being updated.
Here’s what worked for us:
- Add it to code reviews: Make it standard to ask, “Are the docs updated?” If they’re not, it’s not ready to merge.
- Assign ownership: Every service or component should have an owner responsible for keeping the docs accurate. It’s part of their job, not an optional task.
- Make it easy: If updating docs is painful, no one’s going to do it. Invest in tooling that makes it quick and painless. Markdown in the same repo as the code works great.
At a previous company, we integrated documentation updates into the CI pipeline. Every time a developer updated an API endpoint, they had to update the docs. The process was seamless, and within a few weeks, questions in Slack about the API dropped significantly. Engineers were moving faster because they weren’t hitting undocumented roadblocks.
The Cost of Ignoring Documentation
Ignoring documentation leads to more than just frustrated developers. It slows down the entire team. People waste time figuring things out, asking the same questions over and over, or worse, they build features based on outdated docs and create bugs.
And the longer you ignore it, the more expensive it gets to fix. Like code debt, if you let documentation debt pile up, it becomes harder to pay down later.
Imagine this: You’ve got a feature that’s been refactored three times, but the docs are still from version one. Now, someone new joins the team and starts building on top of it. They run into problems, ask for help, and eventually, you realize the docs are three versions behind. Now you’ve wasted days, if not weeks.
How to Keep Docs Current (Without Losing Your Mind)
The key to keeping documentation current is automation. In one of my previous roles, we automated doc generation for our API using tools like Swagger. Every time the code changed, the API docs were automatically updated.
Here are a few tools and methods that help:
- Swagger/OpenAPI: Automatically generate API docs from your codebase.
- Storybook: Great for front-end components. It documents UI elements as you build them.
- Markdown in Git: Keep your docs in the same repo as your code, so they get updated together.
- CI Pipelines: Include a step in your CI pipeline to check if documentation has been updated when relevant code changes occur.
Automation is your best friend here. It ensures your docs stay in sync with your code.
When to Review and Update Docs
Documentation isn’t a “set it and forget it” task. A good rule of thumb is: whenever you touch the code, check the docs. If your feature changed or your API now behaves differently, update the docs in the same PR.
Beyond that, schedule regular reviews. Every quarter, go through the docs and make sure they still reflect reality. Things change fast, and if you don’t actively maintain your documentation, it’ll fall out of date sooner than you think.
The ROI of Clear, Up-to-Date Docs
Clear, accurate documentation saves time and frustration. It helps onboard new developers faster, reduces the number of bugs caused by misunderstandings, and improves overall productivity.
In my experience, teams that invest in clear, up-to-date documentation move faster, ship fewer bugs, and have happier developers. And that’s something worth prioritizing.
