We promote learning and collaboration within the technological and scientific community

When in doubt, read the docs. When deployment breaks, read the docs. When everything’s fine and you’re just vibe coding… still read the docs. But why do developers still turn to Stack Overflow or tools like ChatGPT for answers? Often, it’s because documentation is an afterthought; hard to navigate, incomplete, or not written with the user in mind. Documentation is typically the first point of contact for your project. As a maintainer, you can’t walk every contributor through the process step by step. As an organization, not everyone will watch your demo video. You need documentation that advocates for your project and helps people get what they need. According to the 2024 GitHub Open Source Survey, clear contribution guidelines are among the top factors that influence contributions to a project. In this talk, you’ll learn how to make your documentation work for you and your project. We’ll cover: - How good documentation enhances the developer experience - Creating interactive docs with tools like Swagger UI, StackBlitz, CodeSandbox, and Replit - How to write an effective README & contribution guide - Structuring docs for different users with the Diátaxis framework - Embedding interactive demos with MDX or sandboxing tools - Treating docs as code to improve maintenance and collaboration - Localization tools to make your docs accessible to a global audience