Documentation for Open Source Projects

You built something useful. You open-sourced it. People starred it. And then the issues started rolling in:

"How do I set this up?" "Where's the documentation?" "I want to contribute but I don't understand the codebase."

Every open source maintainer knows this pain. You want contributors. You need contributors. But every potential contributor who opens your repo and sees no documentation quietly closes the tab and moves on.

The ones who stick around? They ping you on Discord. They open issues asking basic questions. They submit PRs that don't fit the architecture because they couldn't understand it. You spend more time explaining the codebase than improving it.

Documentation is the gateway to contributions. Without it, you're the bottleneck.

The Open Source Documentation Problem

Writing documentation takes time you don't have. You're maintaining this project in your spare hours. Between your day job, your life, and actually coding new features, documentation always loses.

So you tell yourself you'll do it later. Later becomes never. The README stays sparse. The architecture lives only in your head. And your project stays a one-person show.

This isn't a character flaw. It's a structural problem. Documentation requires effort that doesn't ship features. For solo maintainers and small teams, that effort is a luxury.

What Contributors Actually Need

When someone lands on your repo wanting to contribute, they need answers to three questions:

1. What does this project do? Not marketing speak—a technical explanation of the architecture and how pieces fit together.

2. Where do I start? Which files matter? What's the entry point? How does data flow through the system?

3. How do I make changes safely? What patterns does this codebase follow? What will break if I change something?

Without documentation answering these questions, contributors either give up or waste time reverse-engineering your code.

What Generated Documentation Looks Like

Code Summary analyzes your repository and generates documentation that answers these questions automatically. Here's what that looks like in practice:

Architecture Overview:

# Project Architecture

## Overview
This is a CLI tool built with Node.js that processes markdown files
and generates static documentation sites.

## Core Components

### Parser (`src/parser/`)
Handles markdown parsing and frontmatter extraction.
- `index.ts` - Main parser entry point
- `frontmatter.ts` - YAML frontmatter processing
- `markdown.ts` - Markdown-to-HTML conversion

### Generator (`src/generator/`)
Builds the static site from parsed content.
- `index.ts` - Orchestrates the build process
- `templates.ts` - HTML template handling
- `assets.ts` - Static asset copying

### CLI (`src/cli/`)
Command-line interface and argument parsing.
- `index.ts` - Entry point, argument parsing
- `commands/` - Individual command implementations

## Data Flow
1. CLI receives input directory path
2. Parser reads and processes all markdown files
3. Generator creates HTML from parsed content
4. Output written to specified directory

Component Documentation:

# Parser Module

## Purpose
Converts markdown files into structured data for site generation.

## Key Functions

### `parseFile(filepath: string): ParsedDocument`
Reads a markdown file and returns structured data including
frontmatter metadata and rendered HTML content.

### `extractFrontmatter(content: string): Frontmatter`
Parses YAML frontmatter from raw file content.
Returns default values if no frontmatter present.

## Dependencies
- `gray-matter` - Frontmatter parsing
- `marked` - Markdown rendering

## Usage Example
```typescript
import { parseFile } from './parser';

const doc = parseFile('./docs/getting-started.md');
console.log(doc.frontmatter.title);
console.log(doc.html);

**AI Context Files:**

```markdown
# AI Assistant Context

## Project Summary
Static site generator for documentation. Node.js CLI tool.

## Key Patterns
- Functional approach, minimal classes
- All config via CLI args or frontmatter
- No external database, filesystem only

## Important Conventions
- All source in `src/`, tests in `tests/`
- Use async/await, no callbacks
- Errors throw, don't return null

## Common Tasks
- Add new CLI command: create file in `src/cli/commands/`
- Support new frontmatter field: update `src/parser/frontmatter.ts`
- Add template helper: modify `src/generator/templates.ts`

This documentation appears as a pull request. You review it, merge it, and now every contributor can understand your project.

Why This Changes Contribution Dynamics

With documentation in place:

Contributors self-serve. Instead of asking you where to start, they read the architecture overview. Instead of guessing at patterns, they follow documented conventions. Your Discord gets quieter because the answers are in the repo.

PRs improve. Contributors understand the architecture before making changes. Their PRs fit the codebase patterns. You spend less time requesting changes and more time merging.

New contributors stick around. The barrier to entry drops. Someone who would have bounced after 10 minutes of confusion now has a roadmap. They make their first contribution. They come back for a second.

You stop being the bottleneck. Knowledge lives in the repo, not your head. The project can grow beyond what you can personally explain.

Keeping Docs Current

The other documentation problem: staleness. You write docs, the code changes, the docs lie.

Code Summary runs on every push. When your code changes, the documentation updates. Contributors always see current information, not outdated explanations of how things used to work.

For open source projects with multiple contributors making changes, this matters. Documentation drift is how contributors get misled and submit broken PRs.

Get Started

Your project deserves contributors who understand what they're working on. Your contributors deserve documentation that helps them succeed.

Install on GitHub

Connect your repositories, and documentation appears. No configuration. No maintenance. Just docs that help your community grow.