# Writing docs

How to write and update this repo's docs and code comments. The source is the truth: docs explain *why* and point at the source for *what*.

## Rules

1. **Source-of-truth line.** Every doc outside `docs/research/` and `docs/agents/` opens with a `> **Source of truth:** …` line. It names the files, services or keys the doc explains and says the source wins on disagreement. In the body, name keys and flags (`LLAMA_PARALLEL`, `--cache-reuse`) and leave their values in the source. When a doc and its source disagree, fix the doc in the same change.
2. **The README index is the doc map.** Every new doc gets a row in `README.md`'s Docs table.
3. **Code comments are pointers.** In `docker-compose.yml`, `.env.example` and `scripts/`, a comment is a one-line `# see docs/<file>.md#<section>` pointer, and the explanation goes in that doc section. Two things stay inline as one line, next to the pointer:
   - a **warning** about data loss, security, or an edit that breaks the stack or a script
   - on `.env.example` keys that `update.sh` fills in, the marker "auto-filled by update.sh — leave blank"

   A `ponytail:` note becomes a pointer too, with its reasoning moved into the doc.
4. **A source change carries its doc.** When you change code that has a pointer, update the doc section it names in the same change.
5. **`docs/research/` is frozen history.** New research goes in a new file plus a row in [`docs/research/README.md`](../research/README.md). When a research doc goes stale, change its status in that index and leave the file itself untouched.

Terminology follows [`CONTEXT.md`](../../CONTEXT.md). For a term that isn't there, see [domain docs → New or conflicting terms](domain.md#new-or-conflicting-terms).

## Done when

- every pointer in the code you touched resolves to an existing heading
- every doc you touched opens with its source-of-truth line
- no doc you touched restates a value from its source