A documentation system tenet in DocOps embodies the ideal properties that a documentaton system—and primarily, its main documentation platform—should exhibit when fully embracing DocOps principles.
- Minimal secrecy: most documentation in an enterprise should be accessible to the extended enterprise—all employees and partners—by default.Â
- Uniform addressability: most documentation should have a human-friendly and consistent addressing mechanism.
- Flat namespace: most documentation should be produced for the benefit of the entire enterprise rather than the specific communication needs of a team or domain.
- Change reactivity: the documentation system should automatically react to changes by updating content, linking to new versions, highlighting deltas, or a combination thereof.
- Decoupled rendering: the documentation system should generate documentation in multiple formats automatically, from a single canonical source, without forcing authors to reauthor documents for each format.
- Implicit versioning: the documentation system should maintain document version control automatically, and the capability of selecting versioned documents in a consistent manner.
- Contemporary prompt: documentation should be queryable using a contemporary prompt interface.
- Authoring delight: the documentation system should empower authors with modern and intelligent document editing and processing capabilities.
- Emergent structure: the categorization and organization of documentation should be capable of continuous overhaul. Â
- Floating taxonomies: a documentation system should support multiple taxonomies that are independent from file locations.Â
- Composability: most documentation should be produced by composing existing documents, rather than by starting new documents from scratch.
- Embedding and blending: external information should be embedded and seamlessly blended with the relevant document rather than forcing users to look up missing information on external systems.
- Consistent layout: documentation layouts should be consistent across the enterprise and not vary by business domain, department, or other arbitrary criteria.
- Connected content: all related information components should be connected, sparing the user from the need of parallel searches.
- Automated content generation: that the documentation system should aim to generate content in a hands-free, mechanical fashion, whenever possible.
- Contextual wayfinding: users should be provided with granular semantic and spatial orientation when browsing documentation.