Documentation principles:
Document decisions
- Why this approach?
- Why this tradeoff?
- What alternatives were considered?
Document architecture
- System overview
- Component relationships
- Data flow
Document gotchas
- Edge cases
- Known issues
- Workarounds
Document how to run
- Dependencies
- Environment setup
- Common commands
Tools:
- README files for projects
- API documentation (OpenAPI)
- Architecture Decision Records (ADRs)
- Code comments for complex logic
The goal: Someone new should be productive in 1 day, not 1 week.