audita/docs/policy/documentation.md

# Documentation Policy

**Base Policy Version:** 1.1

**Last Updated**: 2026-09-23

## Purpose

This policy assigns each documentation topic to one canonical owner. Its goal is
to keep this application's documentation accurate, concise, discoverable, and resistant
to drift for users, operators, developers, integrators, and LLM coding agents.

## Core Rules

### One Canonical Owner

Each authoritative fact belongs in one document. A non-owning document may give
a short, stable summary for orientation, but it must link to the canonical owner
instead of repeating volatile details.

Volatile details include commands, flags, configuration fields and defaults,
module keys, schemas, file names, paths, status codes, retry behavior, and
runtime guarantees. If readers could reasonably treat a statement as a
contract, maintain it only in the owning document.

### Current And Future Behavior

Outside `docs/roadmap/`, documentation describes implemented behavior only.
Partial features may be described only to their implemented boundary.

ADRs are the narrow exception: an ADR may record an accepted architectural
decision before implementation, but acceptance must not be presented as proof
that the behavior exists. The roadmap owns implementation status and sequencing
until the decision is implemented. Current architecture, user, operator,
integration, and internal documentation are updated when the behavior lands.

### Audience And Detail

Write for the document's stated audience and include only the detail needed for
its owned topic. User and operator docs should not expose implementation detail.
Developer docs should link to user-facing and external contracts rather than
restate them.

### Examples

Complete copyable files belong in `examples/`. Documentation may use the
smallest illustrative snippet needed to explain its owned topic, but should link
to maintained examples instead of embedding a second complete copy.

Examples must be valid, secret-free, and tested where practical. Commands and
configuration used in documentation should match the application.

### Security And Privacy

Documentation and examples must not contain real credentials, private keys,
private environment dumps, sensitive source material, or private infrastructure
details unless intentionally public. Document secret-handling mechanisms, not
secret values.

## Canonical Ownership

| Topic | Canonical owner | Owned content | Content owned elsewhere |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Product orientation and minimal end-to-end quickstart | `README.md` | What this application is, why it is useful, one shortest successful invocation, and links onward. | Complete command reference, configuration reference, operational procedures, implementation detail. |
| Contributor entry point | `docs/development.md` | Task-oriented reading guide, minimal contributor orientation, baseline validation commands, and links to canonical docs. | Package inventory, architecture rules, subsystem behavior, detailed change recipes. |
| Application architecture policy | `docs/policy/architecture.md` | System shape, normative ownership, dependency direction, architectural boundaries, invariants, safety properties, and non-goals. | Concrete package inventory, implementation mechanics, contributor procedures, decision history, future work. |
| Agent policy | `docs/policy/agents.md` | Implementation discipline for coding agents, including proportionality, idiomatic simplicity, code discovery, Git commit restrictions, and rules against inventing requirements, restrictions, guarantees, or repository policy. | Application contracts, architecture, testing policy, and contributor procedures. |
| Documentation policy | `docs/policy/documentation.md` | Documentation ownership, audience boundaries, maintenance rules, and ADR/document lifecycle. | Application architecture or product behavior. |
| Testing policy | `docs/policy/testing.md` | Test philosophy, risk-based sufficiency, test boundaries, doubles, coverage guidance, regression-test policy, and criteria for adding, rewriting, or deleting tests. | Subsystem behavior, application contracts, subsystem-specific test inventories, and implementation plans. |
| Release policy | `docs/policy/release.md` | Versioning and compatibility rules, release integrity and immutability requirements, release-documentation policy, required gates, publication controls, verification requirements, and exception policy. | Repository-specific commands, product installation guidance, CLI version semantics, historical release summaries, and CI implementation detail. |
| Repository-specific release procedure | `docs/release.md` | Maintainer prerequisites, candidate preparation, concrete validation and publication commands, repository and registry guards, deliverable publication, consumer-facing verification, and failure recovery. | General release requirements, product installation guidance, historical release summaries, and current compatibility contracts. |
| CLI contract | `docs/cli.md` | Commands, arguments, flags, invocation semantics, and exit codes. | End-to-end operating procedures, configuration field definitions, runtime filesystem layout, module implementation details. |
| Configuration contract | `docs/config.md` | Discovery and precedence, file schema, fields, defaults, environment overrides, validation rules, and user-selectable module or validator keys. | Complete example files, CLI syntax, runtime state lifecycle, module implementation details. |
| Operations | `docs/operations.md` | Runtime workflows, physical filesystem and state layout, output, cache, and debug handling, cleanup, permissions, recovery, and operational limits. | CLI flag syntax, configuration field definitions, logical output schemas, implementation mechanics. |
| Integration contracts for external components | `docs/integrations/`, including `docs/integrations/output-files.md` for serialized outputs | External file formats and protocols, upstream and downstream contracts, logical output bundle paths and schemas, media types, and compatibility behavior. | Physical runtime placement and lifecycle, internal transformations, CLI syntax, configuration defaults. |
| Inventory of implemented internal packages | `docs/internal/overview.md` | Current packages and components, their implemented responsibilities, and links to focused internal docs. | Normative architecture, contributor reading policy, external contracts. |
| Behavior and architecture of internal packages | Other files under `docs/internal/` | Implementation flow, internal collaborators and state transitions, package-local guarantees and failures, and relevant tests. | Global architecture invariants, configuration definitions and defaults, external schemas, operator procedures. |
| Contributor change recipes | Relevant files under `docs/internal/`, including `docs/internal/cli-config.md`, `docs/internal/modules.md`, and `docs/internal/validators.md` | Concrete editing and validation steps for each component. | Contributor orientation, global policy, and definitions of external contracts. |
| Architectural decision records | `docs/adr/` | Significant decisions, context, alternatives, rationale, consequences, and supersession history. | Current behavior reference, implementation status, task sequencing. |
| Future work and implementation status | `docs/roadmap/` | Proposed, accepted, deferred, or rejected work; implementation status; sequencing; and task breakdowns. | Implemented behavior reference and architectural decision rationale. |
| Release-note history | `docs/releases/` | One checked-in historical summary for each source release made under the procedure. The note at the immutable tag is that release's record. | Current commands, behavior, contracts, and compatibility definitions. |
| Complete copyable artifacts | `examples/` | Maintained configuration, inputs, and other files intended to be copied or run. | Field-by-field reference, command reference, prose explanation. |

Documents that do not exist are required only when the corresponding interface
or responsibility exists. Do not create placeholder API, consumer, integration,
or operations documents for behavior the application does not have. Audita has
retired its standalone troubleshooting guide; concrete operating and recovery
procedures belong in `docs/operations.md`.

## Boundary Rules

### Orientation

The README owns product orientation. The developer guide routes contributors.
Architecture owns normative structure. Internal overview owns the current
concrete component map. These documents may link to one another but should not
maintain parallel package or behavior descriptions.

### Commands, Configuration, And Operations

CLI documentation answers how to invoke the application. Configuration
documentation answers what settings mean. Operations answers what happens to
runtime state and how to operate or recover the application. When a workflow
crosses these topics, choose the document that owns the task and link to the
other contracts.

### Releases

The release policy defines requirements and invariants that every release must
satisfy. The repository-specific release procedure defines the commands and
workflow maintainers use to satisfy that policy. Release notes are immutable
historical summaries, not current-state contract owners: the checked-in note at
an immutable tag records that release, while current canonical documentation
must change with the behavior it describes. Do not use a release procedure or
release note to weaken policy, redefine current behavior, or defer required
documentation updates.

### Contracts And Implementation

Integration and API documents define externally observable shapes and
semantics. Internal documents explain how this application implements or consumes those
contracts. Internal docs may name a field, file, or protocol to identify a
dependency, but must link to its canonical contract for the definition.

### Security Topics

This policy owns what documentation and examples may contain. Architecture owns
application security invariants. Configuration owns credential-supply
mechanisms. Operations owns permissions and handling of sensitive runtime
artifacts. Internal docs own implementation mechanisms only.

## Architecture Decision Records

Use sequentially numbered ADR filenames such as
`0001-record-architecture-decisions.md`. Follow the lightweight Nygard format:

1. title;
2. status;
3. date;
4. context;
5. decision;
6. alternatives considered;
7. consequences.

Treat the decision content of an accepted ADR as immutable. When a decision
changes, create a new ADR and update the earlier ADR's status to superseded.
Rejected architectural alternatives belong in the ADR; rejected product ideas
belong in the roadmap.

## Maintenance

When behavior changes, update its canonical owner in the same change. If
ownership moves, remove the old definition and replace it with a link where
navigation remains useful.

Before completing documentation work:

- verify affected behavior and examples;
- check commands, flags, fields, defaults, schemas, and paths against their
  implementation;
- keep unimplemented behavior in the roadmap, subject to the ADR exception;
- remove stale references and validate links;
- confirm that non-owning documents summarize and link rather than redefine;
- confirm that no secrets or sensitive private data were added.